tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9892568631523166442024-03-19T03:30:28.702-07:00The Women's Liberty Bell Blog: Chime in with us!Are you working within a faith context to Establish Justice for girls/women? Do you find yourself struggling to work through similar ideas/roadblocks our suffragist sisters faced 100+ years ago? If so, “chime in” with us & share insights, laments, hopes & strategies for change to continue the unfinished work of establishing Liberty & Justice for All, males & females alike. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16085702196734270826noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-34700788938167594942014-03-18T08:01:00.000-07:002014-03-22T05:02:50.804-07:00Peering Under Our Collective Burqa: How Do Our Own Religious "Personal Status" Codes Cover & Diminish the Fully Humanity of Women <!--[if !mso]>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Peering Under Our
Collective Burqa: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://bulletinoftheoppressionofwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Afghan-women-burka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://bulletinoftheoppressionofwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Afghan-women-burka.jpg" height="220" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How Do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Our Own</i> Religious "Personal
Status" Codes <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Cover </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">and
Diminish the Full Humanity of Women?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">by
Emily Nielsen Jones,</span></b><span style="font-family: "Century Gothic"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Co-founder/President of the Imago
Dei Fund, is a donor activist engaged in promoting human equality, justice, and
peace in our world</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">She
is particularly passionate and engaged in the nexus of faith, gender, and
development working to mobilize our faith traditions to more fully and
unambiguously offer a spiritual ideal of gender equality to our world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span>
<o:p style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"></o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;">March 8th came and went, the 39th observation of International Women's Day, a day set aside to collectively take stock of how the world’s women are doing. The theme for this year--</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;"><i>Equality for women is progress for all</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;"><i>--</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;">captures the spirit of this day to invite and remind us all that t</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;"><i>he better world we want to create for girls and women is indeed a better world <u>for us all</u>. </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12px;">This blog asks people of faith to hold a mirror up to ourselves to ask if we are in fact part of this “us”… (Also appears at <a href="http://www.imagodeifund.org/Peering_Under_Our_Collective_Burqa.pdf">http://www.imagodeifund.org/Peering_Under_Our_Collective_Burqa.pdf</a>)</span><br />
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</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">By nature an optimist, I do enjoy this day set
aside to celebrate women’s accomplishments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everywhere, women are bravely rising up above patriarchal customs and
cruel forms of highly prevalent violence to “lean in” to their own economic and
social and spiritual empowerment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is indeed incredible momentum afoot in our world in so many sectors of society
to really mainstream women's equality/gender balance not just as a
"women's issue" per se but rather as a shared human concern, i.e.
what is good for girls/women is also good for global development, good for
society, good for relationships, good for families, good for healthy teams,
good for organizational dynamics and even good for the "bottom line" of
business. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Societies with greater equality between men and women<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">are healthier, safer and more prosperous. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">~ The Elders<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Yet </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">every
year for the past few years as International Women’s Day rolls around, I feel a
strange mix of both hope and despair as I hold the gender contradictions of our
world close to my <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">heart. Don’t be such a pessimist, I tell
myself, be <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">positive!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet I cannot shake a refrain I have heard again and again from women’s
human rights activists working around the world:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Here in our country, we have a decent legal
code for women however in recent years we have experienced a backlash that is
threatening to undo many of the strides that women have made.” However you fall
on the optimist/pessimist scale, it is safe to say that women’s place in the
world is still highly tenuous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Here in the US, most women (and men) take for
granted a set of basic human rights (i.e. to vote, own property, to drive, to access
basic healthcare, go to school, marry freely, divorce, have custody of children,
etc) and we tend to presume that the women’s movement is almost in autopilot
marching forward. However, around the world, all these things are still very
much up for grabs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through my travels
with the Global Fund for Women and other philanthropic endeavors, I have had
the opportunity to meet and interact with some amazingly brave women’s human
rights leaders who put themselves at great risk to continue the unfinished work
of the women’s movement that exists everywhere in our world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their perseverance and passion has touched me
deeply and I feel their uphill struggle in my own body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><u>Again and again, what I see and hear and
observe is that the biggest source of gender regression in our world today (next
to maybe the commercial sex trade) is uniformly from within the ranks of
religion.<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know about you, but as a person of faith
this grieves me deeply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I continue to
have faith <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in faith</i> as a force for
justice in our world, but if you look with neutral eyes at the impact of religion
collectively on women’s ongoing journey toward equality, it is hard to say
whether religion/faith is on balance an ally or a hopeless obstacle… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Gender Regressions Exhibit A: </span></b><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">The positive buzz of
International Women's Day had barely passed when shocking news came out of Iraq
that the Cabinet had passed a bill to amend the "Personal Status
Code" of the country which would lower the legal age a girl could marry from
16 to age 9, make it legal for a husband to rape his wife, and also bar women
from having custody of their children after a divorce. At times the
obstacles to women continuing their march toward equality just seem so massive
and immovable. <i>Can women truly advance toward a more equal standing in
our world without our religious traditions fully on board?</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Anyone who has traveled around the world or who
even tangentially follows global events in the news knows that all is not well
across the gender divide in our world... As documentaries like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half the Sky </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Girl Rising </i>have shown the world, girls and women around the world
suffer unspeakable levels of abuse and enslavement that many consider the most
grave humanitarian crises of our generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even if not an ardent "feminist", our hearts break as we gain
awareness of how low the bar has dropped for girls and women’s basic dignity
and rights around the world and even right here in our own backyards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Despite so much progress on so many levels,
across the board on virtually every social indicator, females still
collectively occupy a low social and economic status in the world, still bear a
disproportionate burden of all of our world's vexing humanitarian problems, and
as you peel back the layers to ask why? this is still the case in the year 2014
you cannot escape the reality <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that deep
within our human consciousness there is still a collectively low valuation of
females</i> which makes them/us vulnerable to a host of social ills. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">For those of us who are people of faith, it can
be a crushing reality to bear that, as we see in this story out of Iraq and
countless others like this, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">religion is
the only voice in our world which continues to set as an ideal that women belong
in a “special category”—a separate legal and social status—which justifies and
warrants a limited agency and sphere in society.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may be saying to yourself, but we
Christians do not impose religious "Personal Status" laws on society
like those Muslims!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>W<i>hat does this
have to do with us here</i>? We do not do such extreme things here!
And thank you very much, our Bibles and our churches do not condone such
awful things against women and girls! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">“Personal Status” law is a general term for legal
provisions that address areas such as marriage, divorce, family life, child
custody, inheritance, and property ownership. In most countries, like
ours, these laws are rooted in a secular civil code and establish a basic
context for equal treatment of men and women under the law, i.e. that there is
nothing about being female or male that would abridge or limit one's ability to
marry or divorce or inherit property. Personal “status” is of course not
just created by laws but by how society in general tends to rank groups of
people and dole out rights and privileges and respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we saw during the civil rights movement,
any proclivity to put a group into a “separate” category warranting different
rights is a dangerous slippery slope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Sharia law justifiably makes Christians here feel
uneasy and judgmental, yet what about the more subtle ways in which our own
religious traditions/ideas/church policies create a separate category or
“status” for women which warrants abridging their agency, rights, and freedoms
in the religious sphere, and by extension, in larger society</span></b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">?
That a bill to lower the legal age of marriage from 16 to 9 passed in any
formal branch of any government in our world and is now being considered by
Parliament… this may seem shocking and outrageous to our contemporary
sensibilities, but if you move beyond the initial repulsion it makes more sense
when you put it in the larger context that there is still deep within our
collective human consciousness an idea that females—because of their not being
male—belong in a special category which allows for the abridgement of their
basic human rights and movement in society. If you are like me and have
spent time in conservative churches here in the US, do we not do the same
thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We breathe a sigh of relief when we hear of a
country raising the minimum age that females can be married, encouraging girls
to attend school, and we are so gung ho to fight human trafficking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we (many of us) still, like our Arab
counterparts, accept the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">underlying idea
that female children right from the womb belong in a category that warrants a
diminished agency</i>/sphere in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With this separate “personal status” uncritically intact, even when
things improve by any measure, a girl/woman/s fundamental rights hang in the
balance subject to the whims of the religious/political pendulum swinging back
and forth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Most of us generally presume that the doors of
life will be as equally open to our daughters as our sons. <b>Yet right here in
one of the most "advanced" countries in the world, right here in our
own pews, right here in our own faith-based organizations are there not all
sorts of ways in which we implicitly, and at times explicitly, tolerate/endorse
things we would not dare tolerate in a secular context which flagrantly
diminish the "personal status" of women?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Gender Regressions Exhibit B: </span></b><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">A relatively new Ivy League
campus ministry (which focuses on leadership development of Christians in
society) that many people I know support does not allow women to progress above
a certain level in its org chart or have women on its board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not surprisingly, they do not exactly
advertise this openly on their website!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">"But even as far as we've come,” wrote nun
Joan Chittister in the Shriver Report, “women are still one class of people who
are set apart, separated, and given less value and worth by multiple religious
traditions. Religion has defined women by their maternity—just one dimension of
a woman's multifaceted humanity. Religion has defined women as 'helpmates,' as
too irrational to lead, too intellectually limited for the public dimensions of
life. Though they are endowed with the same degree of sense, reason, and
intellect as men, women have been locked out of full humanity and full
participation in religious institutions and society at large. This
marginalization of women masquerades as 'protecting' them and even 'exalting'
them. Instead, these attitudes serve to deny the human race the fullness of
female gifts and a female perspective on life." - See more at: </span><a href="http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Women-in-Religious-Leadership/Empty-Pews-Deborah-Dykes-03-12-14.html#sthash.UtaX5MlO.dpuf"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Women-in-Religious-Leadership/Empty-Pews-Deborah-Dykes-03-12-14.html#sthash.UtaX5MlO.dpuf</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Regardless of one’s religious affiliation, it can
be a useful exercise to reflect on the collective influence of religion on the
collective status of girls and women in our world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each tradition is unique, however they all
spring from the same patriarchal soil in the ancient world and bear some
similar dynamics and contradictions as they are lived and applied in
contemporary society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paradoxically,
faith has been and continues to be both a source of challenge and a source of validation
of cultural gender norms that limit and prescribe women’s place in society to a
subordinate role/sphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As
Christians who care about justice, we have to ask ourselves: which of these
streams do we want to swim in?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we
want the world to see us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a source of
gender regression in our world or as an unambiguous partner and ally in
creating a more just, gender-balanced world where girls/women are honored as
full equals in society and can thrive and grow and live into their full
God-given potential?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">What
gender "codes" operate both formally and informally in your own church/religious
context?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is your faith community throwing
out there into the cultural mix of our world which effect in some way the
collective "personal status" of women, i.e. how women are valued and
treated in all their complexity and individuality vis a vis other groups in
society?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes it is the more subtle dynamics/attitudes
that are harder to detect and change… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">On a recent family ski weekend, a friend (a
Christian) and I did just this. We both have daughters, hers adopted from China
so the problem of "gendercide"--an eery term for the systematic
preference we see around the world for boys and the vanishing of large
populations of females--is close to her heart. We both were sharing our
gender angst at the awful things that girls and women endure around the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We began with China's one child
policy and meandered around the globe from one awful harmful gender custom to
another--child marriage, child prostitution/trafficking, FGM, polygamy, land
grabbing from widows, etc etc--and came full circle back to our own backyards
with her sharing her vexation at seeing women totally covered in burqas
strolling around her own town. As mothers of girls, the conversation had
a very personal and maternal quality: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how
can the world treat girls this way?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Gender Regressions Exhibit C:</span></b><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burqas in the
US?! Wow, the world in all its exasperating gender contradictions right
here at our own doorsteps. For me, I shared, my first real encounter with
covered women was on a women's donor trip to Istanbul where I kept seeing the
same couple--a nice looking young husband walking next to a shrouded wife (who
even wore an extra black shroud over her eyes) pushing a baby stroller--walking
down the busy tourist strip right near my hotel.<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> It is hard to fathom, that in the year 2014 burqas are not only on the
rise in the Islamic world but are becoming more common around the world, even
here in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">As Linda Chavez described in a New York Post
article, “Two decades ago, it was exceedingly rare to see burqas in public in
the United States. But, depending on where you live, burqas are now visible at
shopping malls and on the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
strikes me most when I encounter burqa-clad women is the contrast between their
dress and their male companions’. Most of these women are covered in thick,
black cloth, even in Washington’s 90-plus degree summers, while the men wear
short sleeves and light khakis.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
interestingly, this is not only within Islam, but is a growing movement within
conservative Judaism to hide women away under burqas: </span><a href="http://www.yourjewishnews.com/2013/04/jv1661.html"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">http://www.yourjewishnews.com/2013/04/jv1661.html</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Burqas on the rise in
the year 2014? Yikes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How can these women tolerate this? </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">She/we
despaired. <i>How can they willingly be part of a religion which treats
them so badly? How can they tolerate being covered up in shame like that
hidden away from society?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">What happens on the other side of the world can
feel remote and removed, but directly or indirectly, as the rise of the burqa
shows us, things “over there” touch us right here in our own backyard. I
too recoil at the sight of a burqa, I admitted. I believe in religious
respect and tolerance but when I see a woman covered in a burqa a very visceral
reaction overrides any semblance of trying to be tolerant or open-minded:
<i>this is simply not ok!... this is not true faith!... how strange and
perplexing the things religion can call "holy"... </i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How
in the world could girls like ours not be wanted around the world? And
how could women stay in such religions which treat them and their daughters so
badly? How could anyone in their right mind think it is holy to cover a
woman's face and hide her from society?</span></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Deep down we all want to belong to something,
don't we? It can be hard to question and challenge something that may
marginalize us from the very community that has formed us and been our
homebase, in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I hesitated for a moment, but proceeded in one of
those open-hearted moments to share with her this strange moment of connection
I felt with the burqa-clad woman walking by my hotel in Istanbul with her nice looking
husband dressed so casually in contemporary clothes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beneath the surface of my feminist angst, a
softer more tender emotion emerged that almost makes me well up with tears even
now writing this... a deep human empathy and solidarity, not of my own making,
with womankind, even one hidden under something as foreign seeming as burqa,
who are part of religious traditions which they love and find security in, but
which continue in various ways to treat them as a secondary, "lesser
than" category of humans whose sphere of movement, individuality, gifts
and agency in the world is "covered up" and abridged by various ideas
and codes which are called "holy". How hard it is for so many
women to navigate all of the contradictions of following a religious path, of
belonging to a religious community which in various ways does not fully embrace
their full humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As Christians living in the West, we cannot help
but feeling uncomfortable even outraged! seeing women's faces covered under
black (or blue) cloth and reading about laws like this one being debated in
Iraq. As a whole in the West, we have benefited from a mélange of
cultural/religious values which we take for granted which have raised the bar
for women's basic human rights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much
so that we easily forget that it was less than 100 years ago that women earned
the right to vote and that the chief arguments against women's suffrage (and
for) were taken from the Bible. Like everything in life, even across the dissimilarity
and the vast dividing lines of religion and culture, there is a thread of
similarity that unites us in our shared human journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we encounter gender practices and norms in
other religions, we can easily find ourselves repelled and even
judgmental.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet in honest moments, do we
not see a little hint of our own reflection (shadow) in that which repels us?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">We meandered from women in burqas to women
sitting in our own pews: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>What
about us? Why do we stay in churches and organizations like the ones we
have grown up in where women must leave the equality we presume at the doors of
our sanctuaries? Why do men and women who presume that their daughters
will have equal opportunity in society tolerate closed doors for females when
they walk across the threshold of our churches?</i><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">She affirmed that women are very well treated in
her church and are respected and considered equal to men but because they
"follow the Bible" women cannot serve as elders or pastors or teach
men and the man is the "head of the household" and thus the primary
decision-maker of the family. Hmmm…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">I wondered outloud,<i> how can we with our
own patriarchal religious codes have any moral platform to challenge or
question another religious tradition's patriarchal gender "status"
code? </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">My holy book says
women can’t do this, your holy book says women can’t wear that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I might think your gender baggage is worse
than my own, but at its core is it not all of the same fabric?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cherry-picking passages out of an ancient
holy book, treating them as timeless and universal and wrenching them from the
larger themes of faith (you know, all those good things like justice, freedom,
love, equality, etc), and acting like God has forever put women into a social
caste or “status” not meant to enjoy the full expression of what it means to be
fully human:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>i.e. to be free to chart
one’s course in life, to be equal, to share power and decision-making, etc,
etc. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>Is it enough to just try to
improve religious patriarchal social structures or for the sake of humankind
must we seek to transform them at their very roots?<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How do <u>our own</u> religious
ideas, interpretations of our holybooks, practices, and policies place a veil
over women’s full humanity?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do all
these well-meaning abridgements bit by bit serve to limit the female face of
God in our world and create a lower social status for women?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Gender Regressions Exhibit D: </span></b><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;"> Even in the liberal state of MA,
I am amazed at this whole vast network of start-up churches, many very hip and
millennial, which are popping up all over the place which do not allow women to
serve as elders or ministers and which define as one of their core founding
distinctives a model of exclusive male leadership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Gender Regressions Exhibit E: </span></b><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Last year before going away on a mother-daughter
getaway, I got online to look for a good “raising girls” book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without intending to, I stumbled upon a whole
cadre of distressing Christian parenting resources (including one affiliated
with the campus ministry I was a part of in college) which under the “raising
girls” parenting section had article after article about raising boys to “step
up” to their rightful place as leaders in relationships and in society ((like
this one which repeats the phase “he must lead her” over and over again in
giving advice about how to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>find and
groom a potential son-in-law: and a new men’s movement with this pyramid on its
marketing materials:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.familylife.com/audio/topics/parenting/essentials/raising-girls/what-he-must-be/20121008-step-up-young-man#.Uyg2LSjNctw"><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 6.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">http://www.familylife.com/audio/topics/parenting/essentials/raising-girls/what-he-must-be/20121008-step-up-young-man#.Uyg2LSjNctw</span></a><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 6.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">)</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 6.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">How do we in our own way continue to
create social pyramids which continue to give divine sanction for limiting the agency/equality
of another?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 9pt;">Even
the most ardent "complementarian" generally does not justify any form
of abuse of girls and women. Yet I continue to be amazed at all of the
eery stories of abuse coming out of highly patriarchal churches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">Gender Regressions Exhibit F: </span><span style="background: lightgrey; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">The examples are too numerous to name, but one that
stands out is radio evangelist Bill Gothard whose story of abuse Rachel Held
Evans recounts in a recent blog post: </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><a href="http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/patriarchy-abuse"><span style="background: lightgrey; color: windowtext; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-highlight: lightgrey;">http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/patriarchy-abuse</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In the spirit of International Women's Day, the
whole month of March has become a time to reflect on both the accomplishments
of women around the world to rise up above patriarchal customs and enslaving
social practices, and a time to take stock and evaluate where more work needs
to be done to keep "bending the moral arc” for a more just world for girls
and women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t help anyone to
wear rosy glasses!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are moving forward
in so many ways, yet at this deeper level of attitudes—where faith is such a
driving force—<u>as people of faith we have much work to do</u> <u>to transform
the deeper roots of the invisible structures which continue to disempower and “cover”
the full humanity of female human beings.<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">What is yours
to do to keep things moving forward for female-kind?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where do you see an abridgement in your
church context that creates a separate “personal status” category for
females?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can you work to change
this, if not for the women in the pews for the little girls whose psyches are
taking it all in?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">How can we enlist the
highest and the best of our faith traditions in the service of a more just and
gender-balanced world? </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">What is ours to
do to change the very widespread dynamic of polarization that we see everywhere
between religion and elevating the status of women to become equal participants
in society?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">How can we honor our
differences as male and female without falling into the dangerous trap of
assigning one to a subordinate class or status?</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">What gives me the greatest hope that positive,
sustainable change is indeed happening to gender-balance our world is seeing
inspired soulful and faith-filled change agents doing their part to enlist the
highest and the best of our religious traditions in the service of a more
gender-balanced, just world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What higher calling as people of faith could
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ideal of human equality and offer this as a beacon, a north star, to all of our
humanitarian efforts to uplift the status and dignity of women?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am so encouraged by a growing movement
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which affirm the equal partnership and full contributions of women at all
levels of the organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Yet at times, the patriarchal Goliath just seems
too big and too powerful… Women around the world are so strong and brave, but
at times I just wish it were not so hard… is sad enough to see things like
early marriage and burqas on the rise in the Islamic world, but the chorus of patriarchal
religious voices amping up right here in our own country to reclaim the
“masculine feel of Christianity”… this seems so careless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What about the very baseline morality of the
Golden Rule?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you were on the other
side of the gender divide, how would this feel to you?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">sigh<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 9pt;">As people of faith, what can we do with
the angst we feel as we encounter foreign and uncomfortable gender customs in
another religious traditions? What can we learn about ourselves by
looking at the ongoing gender struggles we see in in other faith traditions? Let us in humility and in solidarity
build a bridge across our religious divides to access the highest and the best
of faith to co-create the better world that we all deep down seek, not only for
girls and women but for our human family that shares this planet. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">In
honor of International Women's Day, during this month of March hold in your
heart the precarious conditions that continue to surround women's day-to-day
lives around the world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Whether you travel across the globe to Africa or
the Middle East or stroll through the mall in your town, the world in all of
its tensions and tragic complexity—its challenges and its opportunities—is
right at the doorsteps of each of our hearts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The theme song this year, "One Woman" (</span><a href="http://song.unwomen.org/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">http://song.unwomen.org/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">),
conveys the collective intent of this day to see yourself—your mother, your
sister, your daughter, your friend—in the woman hidden under the burqa, the
girl working in the brothel, in the countless women who bear the scars of
patriarchy on their bodies and their souls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Women's unfinished journey toward full human equality is a collective
human struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is yours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">As defensive as we may feel even thinking that something
like child marriage or face/head coverings or female genital mutilation, etc
etc, has anything to do with us as contemporary Christians, that women's
"personal status" is still up for grabs in our world and right in our
own pews suggests we have more work to do to give our daughters, and their
daughter’s daughters, the better world they deserve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Let us not let another
International Women’s Day slip by without removing our rosy glasses to embrace
the highly mixed bag that faith/religious plays in creating the highly precarious
condition of womankind in our world today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Progress won’t happen without each of us bravely and prophetically, male
and female alike, doing our part to no longer turn a blind eye to even the
subtlest form of human diminishment knowing that one little abridgement over
here makes a larger abridgement over there even easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">If we are not moving forward, as we see around
the world, it is all too easy to slip backwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Before we start a
campaign to rescue girls from human trafficking, let’s make sure to do our part
on the theological level to remove the <i>separate ontological category</i> that
still hovers around females in our churches and around the world. Let us
together affirm first and foremost—<i>unambiguously</i>—our common humanity as co-imagebearers
of God, different yes, but of the same spiritual substance worthy of equality
and freedom and shared power in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Let us bravely and
prophetically lift the world’s collective burqa and set free our full human
powers to co-create the better world that lies hidden within creation, within
the heart of God, and within each of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq05qQXOTQjYvIK7XSZSgF0aTkSA89S-JBokr_G4BUixxUGqCN3kYjRuZqFFe4w8buAYmiYyOiAdtJxPN-teatPgdSNGadzIo9IBhhc3zugql4u7zOgemc4W8XWqOt-ydS0Jf96pYrnlXD/s1600/image041.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq05qQXOTQjYvIK7XSZSgF0aTkSA89S-JBokr_G4BUixxUGqCN3kYjRuZqFFe4w8buAYmiYyOiAdtJxPN-teatPgdSNGadzIo9IBhhc3zugql4u7zOgemc4W8XWqOt-ydS0Jf96pYrnlXD/s1600/image041.png" height="146" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>Another world is not only possible, she's on the way and, on a quiet
day, </b></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;"><b>if you listen very carefully you can hear her
breathe. </b></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">~ Arundhati Roy</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">May
it be so.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14426876520852223451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-40086190889441941332014-01-18T04:07:00.002-08:002014-01-18T10:10:45.280-08:00Women Leading to Peace in Syria by Emily Nielsen Joneshttp://www.codepink.org/article.php?id=6546<br />
<br />
It is a sad but true reality that religion and militarization are partners in most of our world's armed conflicts. Women, more so than men, embody a human capacity to see beyond tiring religious, ideological, and political polarizations to embrace our common humanity and build lasting bridges of peace. Women peace-builders are working tirelessly around the world, often at great risk, to create peace by building up human rights, creating a secure civil society, and working to be mainstreamed in formal peace processes. Many of these peace-builders are women of faith who don't see religion as something that has to divide us into separate, alienated tribes of humans. The leadership of these women in our world gives me hope for our world.<br />
<br />
It is shameful that 14 years after the passage of UN Resolution 1325 to mainstream women into all levels of peace-keeping, the upcoming negotiations in Syria have ZERO women at the table. Thank you Code Pink for all you do to support and mobilize women leading for peace. Let's make sure to listen to and amplify the women's peace assembly going on in Geneva separate from the formal talks and let's do everything in our own sphere's of influence to gender balance our world, for the good of humanity and our world.<br />
<div id="content-container" style="float: left; left: 8px; margin-bottom: 10px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 60px; width: 650px;">
<div id="content" style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 15px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px;">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="text" style="width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><div class="title" style="font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Women Lead to Peace</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td></td></tr>
<tr><td class="text"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img src="http://www.codepink.org/img/original/Egypt-Women.jpg" style="border-color: rgb(255, 0, 153);" /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After three years of horrendous fighting, a death toll now exceeding 100,000 and more than seven million Syrians forced to leave their homes, Syrian peace talks will finally take place in Switzerland on January 22, 2014.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In response, CODEPINK and a coalition of women's groups have launched <strong>Women Lead to Peace</strong>, a global alliance of women and male allies calling for an immediate ceasefire in Syria, an embargo on arms sales, greater humanitarian aid for the refugees and displaced, and the full participation of women at the peace negotiations. The group will be mobilizing a physical presence in Montreux from January 20-22, for a <a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=6551" style="text-decoration: none;">Women Lead to Peace Summit</a>. We will be there and you should, too!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">UN Resolution 1325 states that the United Nations must recognize the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and promote their equal participation in all efforts to maintain and promote of peace and security. Women Lead to Peace is calling on Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, to ensure that this mandate is implemented at the Syrian peace talk table.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<img align="right" alt="" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2848/11999830963_80e182720d_o.jpg" height="219" hspace="4" style="border-color: rgb(255, 0, 153);" vspace="4" width="264" /><span id="docs-internal-guid-1ba3334e-a18f-3510-e342-1bd16d71183f" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;">On January 22, 2014, the UN will convene peace talks in Geneva to broker a peace agreement that will hopefully end the devastating civil war in Syria. We know that this deal will not be reached without the full participation of women.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Yet, women are not being fully representated at the peace talks, as if their stake in their future and the future of their country is somehow less important than the voices of the men with the guns. The international community must recognize its legal obligations, moral responsibilities and the practical necessity to ensure women’s participation: peace treaties without women do not work. If women are not a part of peace negotiations, then the peace will reflect only the interests of the most powerful and will ultimately fail.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Women have been organizing, through an inclusive and representative process, and they are prepared to participate in negotiation. Instead, they are told by the United Nations that the political situation is complicated. Women already know that. Yet, they are told that they should look for alternative models and lobby mediators in corridors. This is untenable and wrong. We must join our Syrian sisters in raising our voices, so that Syrian women are not just included but have a real role in deciding the future of their country.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span><br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px;">
<b><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Please join Women International League for Peace and Freedom, CODEPINK, and MADRE in signing this petition and calling for the inclusion of Syrian women’s leadership in the Geneva II negotiations and beyond.</b></b></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The people of Syria have suffered too much, for too long. Let's show them that we will take a stand to end the violence and alleviate the hardships they are enduring.</span><br />
<span class="title" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;">What can you do?</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=7167" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Sign and share the petition!</a></span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="https://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=7497" style="text-decoration: none;">Donate to help bring women to Switzerland and support the Women Lead to Peace Summit</a></span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Join us in Switzerland! Contact Perrine at <a href="mailto:perrine.codepink@gmail.com" style="text-decoration: none;">perrine.codepink@gmail.com</a> and <a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=6551" style="text-decoration: none;">check out the Women Lead to Peace Summit Program</a></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Stay informed: like our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/codepinkalert?ref=tn_tnmn" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Facebook</a> page and follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/CODEPINK" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Twitter!</a></span></li>
</ul>
<span class="title" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;">Latest News & Press Releases</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=6558" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">PR: Global Campaign "Women Lead to Peace" Launched to Bring Hundreds of Women to Syrian Peace Talks in Switzerland</a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/nobel-women-initiative-winners-promote-peace-justice-and-equality/52828d992b8c2a327a000142" style="text-decoration: none;">Madeleine Rees (WILPF) & Nela Porobic Isakovic on the Syrian Peace Process </a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-rees/women-need-to-be-included-in-syrias-peace-process_b_4418744.html" style="text-decoration: none;">Women Need to Be Included in Syria's Peace Process </a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.wilpfinternational.org/uks-second-call-for-syrian-women-at-peace-talks-shames-silence-of-brahimi-and-member-states/" style="text-decoration: none;">UK Second Call for Syrian Women at Peace Talks Shames Silence of Brahimi and Member States</a></span></span><br />
<a href="http://passblue.com/2013/12/05/syrian-womens-groups-push-for-equal-role-at-geneva-ii-talks/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Syrian Women's Groups Push for Equal Role at Geneva II Talks</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46663&Cr=syria&Cr1=#.UqEbU6XGnFJ" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">UN Official says Syrian refugee women have key role to play in country's future</span></a><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.wilpfinternational.org/first-step-forward-to-ensure-syrian-womens-participation/" style="text-decoration: none;">First Step Forward to Ensure Syrian Women's Participation </a></span></span><br />
<span class="title" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;">Campaign Partners & Endorsers</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><strong>Hosting Organizations</strong><br /><a href="http://www.wilpfinternational.org/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Women's International League for Peace and Freedom</a>, CODEPINK, Iara Lee, <a href="http://www.madre.org/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">MADRE</a>, <a href="http://nobelwomensinitiative.org/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nobel Women's Initiative</a>, <a href="http://kvinnatillkvinna.se/en/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Kvinna till Kvinna</a>, and <a href="http://www.el-karama.org/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Karama</a><span class="title" style="font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><strong>Endorsers</strong><br />Luisa Morgantini, European Union former Vice President; Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize winner; Alice Walker, Author; Eve Ensler, Author, V-Day Founder; Geena Davis, Actress; Chris Hedges, Journalist; Shirin Ebadi, Judge, Lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize Winner. <a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=6548" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">See the full list here!</a><span class="title" style="font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;"></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="title" style="font-weight: bold; padding-bottom: 6px;">Travel Tools</span><br />Visit our <a href="http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=6556" style="text-decoration: none;">travel page</a> to get information on how to get to and stay in Montreux.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Visit our "<a href="http://www.codepink.org/section.php?id=487" style="text-decoration: none;">No War in Syria</a>" Page</span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/codepinkalert?ref=tn_tnmn" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="70" hspace="10" src="https://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/images/facebook_blue.jpg" style="border-color: rgb(255, 0, 153);" width="70" /></a><a href="https://twitter.com/CODEPINK" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="70" hspace="10" src="https://codepink.salsalabs.com/o/424/images/twitter_blue.jpg" style="border-color: rgb(255, 0, 153);" width="70" /></a></span></span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14426876520852223451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-30298156978976629922013-10-11T11:16:00.002-07:002013-10-11T11:54:48.890-07:00For the Sake of the Girl Child: Measuring Progress Toward Gender Equality by Emily Nielsen Jones<div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Happy International Day of the Girl! Today we </span>celebrate <i><b>girl rising</b></i> around the world knowing that an empowered girl is the best way to create positive change in our world.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the spirit of this day, I pass along two links to efforts which are working on the level of religious ideas/practice to create a more just, free world for our world's girls to grow up in and thrive. Girls deserve way better than the violent, enslaving world they are growing up in. These two initiatives recognize that equality is not something ethereal that just happens or doesn't happen, like a rainbow that just appears or a sunset. Rather, it is a daring ideal that we must resolve to operationalize in our very tangible lived realities. What I love about both of these efforts is that they seek to create tangible, measurable impact and, in so doing, to set off a virtuous cycle of change in our world. Check them out and take a few moments today to hold in your heart a prayer for a more kind, empowering world for the girl child.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- a link to a study being launched by Gordon College to measure progress toward gender parity among evangelical institutions: </span><a href="http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/10/11/holy-angst-holding-mirror-ourselves">http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/10/11/holy-angst-holding-mirror-ourselves</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://www.gordon.edu/womeninleadership">http://www.gordon.edu/womeninleadership</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">. </span></div>
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- a new global movement to end enslaving early marriages which rob millions of girls around the world of their childhoods: http://girlsnotbrides.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/j/3C600ACF67E6D28E/85434E883BF568D5D9767B6002735221<br />
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Text to links below. Let's make a commitment to do something big or small today to keep bending the moral arc of the universe to give our world's girls a world they deserve.<br />
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Emily<br />
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<b style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Editor’s Note</i></b><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">: A national study of women in leadership among evangelical nonprofit organizations has been launched by Gordon College. The advisory board for the study is co-led by Emily Nielsen Jones of the Imago Dei Fund and D. Michael Lindsay, President of Gordon College. This essay is adapted from an interview with Emily Nielsen Jones about why this study matters which can be read in its entirety at </i><a _fcksavedurl="http://www.gordon.edu/womeninleadership/interview" href="http://www.gordon.edu/womeninleadership/interview" style="color: #770000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">http://www.gordon.edu/womeninleadership/interview</i></a><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">.</i></div>
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Where do our policies and practices run counter to our larger humanitarian goals?</div>
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I grew up in an evangelical setting, and have been very familiar with gender role ideology that affirms women’s human equality yet still circumscribes women to a “role” at the margins of decision-making. Nonetheless, I was always inspired by the culturally radical way Christ treated and honored women as well as Paul's proclamation in Galatians that in Christ, there is no distinction between slave and free, male and female, Jew and Gentile. So at this stage in my life, I have become increasingly aware of, and distressed by, how some religious-based ideas are contributing to the dangerous mix of cultural ideas, norms, and humanitarian problems that continue to wreak havoc on the bodies and souls of girls and women around the world. That’s primarily why our foundation, Imago Dei Fund, began using a “gender-lens” to guide our decisions.</div>
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As a result, we have become more intentional and deliberate about asking questions regarding implicit and explicit gender policies both within an organization and out in the field. These are questions such as:</div>
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<li style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;">What ideas, if any, around gender guide and shape your work in the world?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;">Does your organization have any explicit policies around gender that limit what women can or cannot do within your organization and out in the field?</li>
<li style="border: 0px; display: list-item; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px;">How have you been working (or not) to promote gender balance within your organization?</li>
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Basically, what we’ve started to find is that many evangelical organizations, even those doing great work for girls and women in the world, have some sort of hidden or “de facto” institutional practices that either explicitly or implicitly (or both) keep women from serving in leadership roles or advancing above a certain level in the organization. Yet by simply asking these questions, we have discovered that many organizations do in fact want to be more gender-balanced and realize that this is central to preserving their Christian witness in our world, but for a variety of reasons this just has not been a priority. That’s when we began to find our philanthropic “niche” in the world: we strive to encourage organizations to work a little bit harder to connect the dots between their faith-based ideas around gender, their institutional practices, subculture, and their humanitarian goals of working to create a more just and equitable world for girls and women.</div>
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So in what I hope was “holy angst,” our original idea was to create some type of "gender scorecard" to help all the stakeholders of faith-based charities/nonprofits (staff, board members, clients, potential donors) look at their own internal policies to see where there are gaps or inconsistencies in order to set goals for how to make tangible incremental steps toward greater gender-balance.</div>
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But the idea meandered around for a year or so and evolved into more of a “gender landscape” study to get a broad snapshot of where evangelical social services and charities stood with respect to gender balance. The idea would have remained just a good idea if it were not for a very engaging and fruitful conversation over dinner with Gordon’s President D. Michael Lindsay and his wife Rebecca, which led to the idea of the study launched with Gordon’s Provost Janel Curry and the new Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Gordon.</div>
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My simple hope for this study is that it would fuel the positive gender winds of change blowing in our world today and that it will serve as a collective mirror to help Christian stake-holders see where positive change is happening in our organizations as well as where obstacles persist. Awareness of “what is” is an important part of the process of change, of “what could be.”</div>
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That is the basic purpose of the study: to step back and see how we measure up as a faith-based sector with regard to the larger social goal of working toward gender parity within all of our organizations and workplaces. Sometimes simply seeing what is with one’s eyes wide open can be a catalyst for seeing what can be.</div>
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We hope to put a spotlight on a set of best practices that are working in the field, so as to make incremental steps toward more gender-balanced organizations. We also hope the study will give validation to people working within their organizations and stakeholders who are influenced by these organizations to keep on asking the good questions. We’re holding up a mirror to where our organizations might have blind spots or are falling short of the ideal of full human equality of men and women as co-image bearers of God. As Jesus once said, those who have eyes to see, let them see.</div>
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<b style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Emily Nielsen Jones</i></b><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> is co-founder and president of the Imago Dei Fund. She is a donor-activist who is</i><i style="border: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">passionate and engaged at the nexus of faith, gender, and development and working to mobilize our faith traditions to more fully and unambiguously embrace gender equality</i>.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Happy International Day of the Girl 2013! Let's celebrate together</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are thrilled to take part in this worldwide celebration of girls’ potential and we hope you join us today in calling for an end to child marriage.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Have you watched our video on what child marriage means for girls?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Until recently, little attention was paid to the plight of child brides. Now, governments around the world are taking steps to end child marriage.</span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But we need more countries to commit to protecting and empowering girls.</strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">By speaking up against child marriage, we can pressure governments to invest in girls’ education, to fund programmes that support and empower adolescent girls, to adopt and enforce laws that set the legal minimum age of marriage at 18.</span></div>
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<strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">YOU can make them take notice.</strong></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16085702196734270826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-65161883753393689332013-10-09T16:41:00.000-07:002013-10-09T16:59:50.415-07:00Holding Up A Mirror to Ourselves: Faith, Anti-Trafficking & Gender Inequality by Emily Nielsen Jones<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img class="s3" src="x-apple-ql-id://C083AEED-9086-4FD3-B6DF-DFF7E3F3CC5F/x-apple-ql-magic/DA3CAACC-6144-423B-8C17-891321117F2C.png" /></span><br />
<img src="webkit-fake-url://652615F3-0D73-4452-8934-C98F9191001E/imagepng" />Practically every day I receive an email or read about a new anti-trafficking conference being held, a new anti-trafficking network being convened, and new philanthropists and activists joining the global effort to rid our world of modern-day slavery. Many of these voices and humanitarian efforts are being led by evangelical Christians who are rolling up their sleeves to<i> set the captives free</i> and create a more free world. The problem is indeed staggering and horrific in it's magnitude and normalization:<br />
<br />
• there are more humans enslaved today than any time in history – estimates range from 20-30 million people trafficked annually<br />
• of these 20-30 million, approximately 80% are female<br />
• the most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation<br />
• the second most common form of human trafficking is forced labor (18%),<br />
• the total market for “illicit human trafficking” is estimated to be around $98 billion<br />
• trafficking takes many forms as a continuum of exploitative, enslaving conditions that diminish human agency through a variety of psychological and physical means and normalized cultural/religious practices like child marriage which impacts nearly 70 million girls around the world in what is essentially trafficking, i.e. the bartering/enslavement of girls as young as 8, bringing the estimates of trafficking up way beyond 100 million/year<br />
<br />
(https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/global-report-on-trafficking-in-persons.html, http://www.nominetwork.org/, http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-human-trafficking<br />
<br />
I don’t know about you, but when I hear these statistics I want to do something about it! That slavery still exists in our world and has been getting worse is just simply hard to stomach. As Americans, and likewise as people of faith, the notion of freedom is so central to our ideals of human flourishing, justice and equality. The abolitionist struggle of the 19th c. is so central to our American sense of identity and our collective human heritage. Yet in the year 2013 right here in our own country, right here in our own backyards and around the world, slavery in so many manifestations has not abated over the centuries but rather has become eerily normalized into the fabric of culture and continues to be a collective thorn our human side. Will we ever really be able to liberate our world from the scourge of slavery? Or is it here to stay? <br />
<br />
I love the abolitionist spirit that we see being awakened today. In our polarized world, it is rare to see things that bring people together and anti-trafficking is definitely one of those things. People who don’t typically see themselves as “activists” are getting activated! Collective awareness is leading to a heightened moral commitment in this moment of time to finish the unfinished work of the abolitionist movement to, once and for all, eradicate enslavement in all its forms from our country and from our planet. Training down to NYC for InterVarsity's Price of Life week long faith-inspired anti-trafficking campaign/conference, top of my mind is the ?:<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>In this particular moment of time... the year 2013...</b><br />
<b>What is the unique contribution of faith/religion in this global movement to keep <i>bending the moral arc of the Universe </i>to create a more free, just world where no human beings are transacted or sold as commodities or diminished in their full human agency as image-bearers of God?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
In this article below published by InterVarsity, I ask evangelicals to hold a mirror up to strange elephant in the room that continues to lurk around in our faith-based ngos, our churches, and para-church ministries: the feminine face of trafficking that is inescapably linked with cultural/religious gender norms around the world which continue to restrict females to a subordinate, <i>lesser than</i> class of human beings which makes them/us vulnerable to various forms of enslaving social conditions. <br />
<br />
That an organization like InterVarsity is addressing this uncomfortable reality is testament to their commitment to not just raising the floor for girls/women around the world but also to raising the ceiling at all levels of their organization. Kudos InterVarsity!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16085702196734270826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-21874068413529105102013-10-09T16:38:00.001-07:002013-10-10T10:30:42.863-07:00Holding Up a Mirror to Ourselves, pt 2: Faith, Human Trafficking & Gender Inequality<div class="page" title="Page 1">
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<span style="color: rgb(75.686270%, 32.156860%, 1.176471%); font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 9.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">About Women: Holding Up a Mirror to Ourselves - Human Trafficking & Gender
Inequality<br />
</span><span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-style: italic;">by Emily Nielsen Jones</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8pt;">The more we peel back the layers of the onion and look at the ugly beast we call "human trafficking" with all
of its grisly manifestations, the more the world begins to seem hopelessly in the grip of dark forces which
capitalize and exploit any human vulnerability. </span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 8pt;">One seasoned veteran I met in Cambodia who worked for years in the region combatting trafficking
described how she has seen the same women and girls rescued multiple times from brothels. The problem
is not "out there somewhere" but is a web of exploitative push/pull factors woven right into the fabric of our
collective social and economic structures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 8pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">How can we as "Christian abolitionists" think and act more systemically to create a world that is more free
and just?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">Trafficking is a highly gendered problem. </span><span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">Of the 32 million trafficking victims, over 80 percent are women.
"Slavery" in the narrow sense (i.e., someone being held against their will) falls into a larger continuum of
gender-based violence and enslaving ideas and conditions which make the poor, migrant, ethnic minorities
and women most vulnerable.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">The core of abolitionist vision, both in the 19th century and today, is the daring spiritual ideal of human
equality, that we are all made in the image of God, male and female alike, and thus are endowed with equal
intrinsic value and a common human yearning for freedom.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">The human quest is not just to be free from abuse; it is to be free from confinement in a restrictive role, free
to soar with full human agency as image-bearers of God. Until we as people of faith begin to see trafficking
as part of the larger continuum of gender injustice and a subordinate view of women, we will not be giving
girls and women the full dignity they deserve nor will we be transforming the deeper religious roots of our
enslaving world.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">If we hold up a mirror to ourselves, we recognize how every little ripple we send out into the world
contributes either to a more just or a more unjust world, a more free or a more enslaving world. How does
religion (ours included) factor into creating such an enslaving world?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">If we recognize that religious beliefs weave themselves into global cultural patterns and power dynamics... if
we remember the sometimes sad history of our own tradition and how the Bible was used by many to
endorse slavery and keep the right to vote and own property and other basic human rights from women... if
we open wide our spiritual eyes and ears and try to connect the dots between the seen and the unseen
dimensions of the trafficking problem... if we address root causes, we as people of faith might think twice
about how ideas of authority and inequality of men and women impact the larger structures of the world. </span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 8pt;">We do not in any way want to undermine the global movement of girls and women of low social status rising
from abuse and living fully into the human equality and freedom that is all of our birthright as image-bearers
of God.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-weight: 700;">On a very practical level</span><span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">, there is lots of great humanitarian work we can do, but we can also channel our
abolitionist spirit towards creating a more gender-balanced spiritual climate in our churches, ministries, and
families which fully values the human agency and spiritual equality of both genders. Start by being the
change you want to see right at your own doorstep.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">Nothing is too small — one little question, one little email, one simple protest of something that seems unjust
or diminishing of the full human equality of women — it may not feel like you are being an "abolitionist" but it
is the little things that each of us do that together unleash a virtuous cycle of freedom.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;">Lord, have mercy on us. May we each be an instrument of your peace and your freedom in our world. May
we begin right where we are. May we have the courage to dare to say "no" to all the little enslaving forces
that work against freedom and equality for all. Amen.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'ArialMT'; font-size: 8.000000pt;"><br /></span>
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<img src="webkit-fake-url://0368EA3A-AB54-463D-A4A4-691D91E284B3/imagejpeg" /><span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Emily Nielsen Jones is a donor-activist engaged in promoting human equality,
justice, and peace around the world. As President and Co-Founder of the Imago
Dei Fund, she is engaged in the nexus of faith, gender, and development and
working to mobilize our faith traditions to more fully and unambiguously embrace
gender equality, including partnering with Gordon College to conduct a study to
measure progress in evangelical institutions toward gender parity. The Imago Dei
Fund is a faith-inspired foundation that partners with anti-trafficking organizations
to transform the underlying systems which make girls and women so vulnerable to enslavement.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-style: italic;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-style: italic;">various forms of enslavement and abuse. She serves on the External Advisory
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-style: italic;">various forms of enslavement and abuse. She serves on the External Advisory
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 8.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Board for InterVarsity's National Women's Council.
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16085702196734270826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-51197589851094243802013-09-05T11:15:00.001-07:002013-09-05T11:15:23.215-07:00Male Rule a Biblical Ideal? (part one) by Mimi Haddad<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;">http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/2013-09-05-male-rule-biblical-ideal-arise-e-newsletter</span><br />
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The author of this article, Mimi Haddad, is truly a force of nature, a brilliant mind, a moral voice in the world doing her part in very conservative religious settings to keep bending the moral arc of justice in our world for women and for a more mutual, interdependent vision of humanity and of God. In this article, she addresses the damaging view of God as a rank-ordered hierarchy and the mirror image of humanity as a gendered hierarchy and the exasperating reality that while over the past 20 years women's participation has been dropping off in American churches various pastors networks are advocating the same patriarchal ideas that have made churches unwelcoming to women. Mimi's passion for equality is contagious and a gift to the world. I hope you get a chance to read this article and join her in doing each of our parts to "clean up the gender baggage" in our churches, temples, and faith-based organizations. </div>
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<tr><td colspan="6" style="padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Male Rule a Biblical Ideal? (Part One)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Mimi Haddad (PhD) is president of Christians for Biblical Equality.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Why is patriarchy so entrenched not only within the major faith traditions, but particularly among Christians? One obvious answer is that the “he will rule over you” of Genesis <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://0" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0" x-apple-data-detectors-type="calendar-event" x-apple-data-detectors="true">3:18</a> was one of the first consequences of sin in the garden. But unlike the other effects of sin—death, toil and work, or even pain in childbirth—male rule has been elevated and advanced as a biblical ideal by religious leaders from the early centuries to the present day. What would happen if Christians also enshrined the other effects of sin, like death for example, as we have male rule?</span></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On the contrary, Christians consistently resist death; we oppose the thorns and thistles of labor through technology and agriculture, just as we work to improve the experiences of childbearing. Yet, male authority receives an enduring endorsement from the church, making it harder to question and challenge, without the fear of opposing God as well.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Weeks after Barna released their 20-year study showing the significant drop in women’s involvement in American Christian churches (the first drop in its history), two separate conferences were held to equip pastors in advancing male authority. Featured speakers, both popular and highly educated theologically, made an appeal to male authority based on what they perceived as a “masculine orientation” of Christian faith. Here we observe a new turn of events in the Christian patriarchal movement. These pastors believe that there is something about God’s being that is “masculine.” Why do they believe this?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">They arrive at this position by drawing on the male language of Scripture. For example, Jesus was male and Scripture reveals God as father, not mother. Jesus selects twelve male disciples and teaches them to pray to God as father. Further, males are frequently noted as the leaders in Scripture. They are described as the “head” of women, and wives are described as being called to submit to their husbands. Most tragically, those pastors supporting male authority believe that Jesus submits, eternally, to God the Father.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">They make this case because they wish to extend hierarchy they suppose exists within the Trinity on males and females. Hence they promote the incoherent—or inconsistent—notion of equal in being, but unequal in role, or authority. How can you be equal in being but unequal in authority? To do so renders the word “equal” meaningless. This “separate but equal” or “equal but different” rhetoric was used in the Unites States to segregate schools, restaurants, restrooms, hotels, buses, and even churches according to skin color. However, the courts decided that separate is never equal because “separate” too easily creates segregated social structures that are <em>inherently</em>unequal and unjust.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Even so, Christians employ the same flawed logic to exclude women from positions of authority in the church. To deny females equal authority not because of their character, their intimacy with Christ, or their giftedness, but solely because of gender—which is a fixed and unchangeable condition—is to create communities, organizations, churches, or marriages that are <em>inherently unjust</em>.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As these teachings attribute hierarchy to the Trinity, and further, connect this hierarchy to the masculinization of God, they construct the most extreme patriarchal worldview in all of church history. It is riddled with biblical and theological errors. Yet we can be thankful that decades of careful egalitarian scholarship means a reasoned response can be made.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Read next week’s <em><a href="http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/arise-e-newsletter" target="_blank">Arise</a></em> to find egalitarian responses to these challenges!<em><br /></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A Movement to Save Our Future</span></span></h1>
<a href="http://ficfellowship.org/2013conference-e.html" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;"><img height="99" src="http://www.cbeinternational.org/files/u1/level-1/Challenge-Grant.jpg" style="border: 0px;" width="280" /></span></a><br />
<strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Renewing Gender Relations</strong><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">People throughout the world are striving to create a global community based on biblical equality. The challenges are numerous, but we are making leaps toward a more equal world. One such leap will occur this November at Fullness in Christ Fellowship's conference, <em><a href="http://ficfellowship.org/2013conference-e.html" target="_blank">Renewing Gender Relations, Living Out the Fullness in Christ</a></em>. CBE's president, Mimi Haddad, will be speaking at this life-changing event.</span><br />
<a href="http://ficfellowship.org/2013conference-registration-e.html" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Sign up and take part in this exciting opportunity!</span></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Would you like to read past columns? <a href="http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/arise-archives" target="_blank">Click here to begin browsing the Arise archives.</a></span></td><td colspan="4" style="padding: 10px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> <strong>T A K E A C T I O N</strong></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">American Association of Christian Counselors: CBE will host an exhibit booth at <em><a href="http://www.worldconference.net/index.php" target="_blank">Our Time is Now</a></em>.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> <strong>B L O G</strong></span><br />
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<a href="http://blog.cbeinternational.org/" target="_blank"><strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: black;"><img height="60" src="http://www.cbeinternational.org/files/u1/cbe-scroll.jpg" style="border: 0px;" width="170" /></span></strong></a></div>
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<strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The CBE Scroll!</strong></div>
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<a href="http://blog.cbeinternational.org/2013/08/my-marriage-bond-from-stratified-to-unified/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: black;">My Marriage Bond: From Stratified to Unified</span></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-49539346054136118552013-08-15T08:27:00.000-07:002013-08-15T11:28:06.699-07:00Just One Story? by Laura Buffington<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This summer the word "agency" has been on my mind... Our agency is at the essence of our humanity. Deep within our soul, regardless of the external circumstances we are born into, we all yearn for the freedom to chart our course, to have an impact. Many of us feel a calling from God that strengthens our agency and connects it to God's purposes. For those of us who find ourselves in religious contexts which still seek to restrict women's sphere of agency in the world to limited roles, finding one's life path is complicated by sorting through competing and confusing messages. I just read this woman's story of growing up in a Christian subculture very much like my own and wanted to pass it along. Her story, so powerful and so vulnerable at the same time, mirrors the larger story of so many women in the church. We women who were loved and nurtured by the church, who love the church, who found our life call in the church, yet we often feel betrayed by this same church which still in some places does fully embrace our humanity and agency. Laura Buffington shares beautifully the internal and external struggles of hearing and staying true to the calling she learned through the same "submission" that is often used to prescribe women's sphere in the church. It is definitely worth the read and really humanizes the debate some conservative christian settings are still struggling to sort through.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you grew up sitting around campfires at camp you will definitely relate to her journey! Thank you Kaitlin Hasserly for passing this along.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Reposting from http://www.seejenwrite.com/?p=9119</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><em>Today my friend <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/LauraBuff" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Laura Buffington</a></strong> shares her story about growing up in the Christian church, sensing a call to ministry, and trying to honor that call as a woman. I’m inspired and encouraged and saddened and challenged by her words, and I’m grateful for their honesty and humility. Simply put, I HAD to share this–thanks, Laura, for telling your story so well and allowing me to publish it here.</em></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.seejenwrite.com/?attachment_id=9120" rel="attachment wp-att-9120" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9120" height="667" src="http://www.seejenwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/shutterstock_12346528.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px;" title="shutterstock_12346528" width="1000" /></a>This will start out looking like a story about me. But if I tell it right, hopefully it will end up being about much more. Even our seemingly small stories have that kind of potential, to communicate something giant about who God is, and why the world exists at all, and what the Gospel has to do with bringing the two together. Sometimes our narratives, and our church’s, matter even more than we can handle.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It would be fair to say I wasn’t just raised<em> in</em> the Christian Church, but <em>by</em> the Christian Church. If my memory can be trusted, my parents had me and my sister at church whenever the doors were open. They had been a part of the group that planted the new church near Columbus, Ohio, so our lives were closely tied to the community. I have vivid memories of refusing to sing along during children’s church, fighting with the boys during Vacation Bible School, and honing my crafting skills in the church basement. I certainly went through seasons where I would have rather stayed home to play, but eventually I came to love the church and to feel loved by the church. By middle school and all the identity crises it brings, I thought of the church as a safe haven, as a place I belonged. Like a dutiful church kid, my summers always included a stint at camp. One year, I was given the prestigious “camper of the week” award. The next year, I had the quintessential “come to Jesus” moment as “I Have Decided” played quietly in the background and I stepped out to come forward for baptism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My high school years were textbook enculturation in the Christian Church. I was moving right along the “Five Finger Exercise.” I went to youth group every Sunday night. Occasionally, I sang into a giant puffy microphone accompanied by cassette tape tracks for the worship service. I served every week at the local Christian-church sponsored nursing home. I was part of a small group for discipleship. My summers were packed full of mission trips and Christian college conferences. I went to public school but I gathered every September to pray around the flagpole and I looked for opportunities to bring Jesus into conversations. When it was time for me to get my first job, I applied at a Christian bookstore and they hired me to sell Sunday School and VBS curriculum. A large part of my growing faith had to do with my youth minister and his wife, along with other adults in the church, nurturing me and modeling faithful lives for me. With my parents’ blessing, the older Christians around me took me into their lives, encouraging me towards maturity.<br /><em><br /></em><br /><strong><a href="http://www.seejenwrite.com/?attachment_id=9121" rel="attachment wp-att-9121" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-9121" height="199" src="http://www.seejenwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/shutterstock_80592727-300x199.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px;" title="shutterstock_80592727" width="300" /></a>The summer before my senior year of high school, after extensive conversations with mentors and friends about all the impending future decisions, I sat around the campfire and felt compelled to attach my future to the church. It was the granddaddy of all camp “decision time” options: Full-time Christian Service.</strong> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For some reason, I didn’t step forward to announce it. I simply resolved in my heart that my career would somehow involve the church. Up to this point, I didn’t have any other ideas so this made sense. My life had been saturated in ministry. The people around me affirmed this decision and encouraged me. I felt an inescapable sense of calling. Looking back now, it’s hard to know exactly where the movement of God collided with my own desires, or the pressure of other people, or the emotional power of a good campfire with acoustic accompaniment, but at the time I was convinced that the next faithful step was to train for ministry.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For all my years spent inside the circle of the church, and for all my exposure to different missions and ministries, my calling came without any specific directions. I had no idea what job I wanted to do, or was supposed to do, depending on your understanding of where freedom ends and God’s sovereignty begins.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Up to this point, after 18 years in the church, no one had ever told me what women could or could not do in the church. When Christian leaders and preachers made appeals at camp, or during worship, for people to give their lives to service, it was a universal call. We were all supposed to use our gifts, surrender our lives, join the big story God is telling. So I went by what they said and not by what I saw—which were limits and roles reserved for certain genders. I saw women sing, but only men could speak. I saw women prepare the communion but only men could march down the aisles to serve it. Women taught children and men taught adults. I knew enough to know all of this had to do with Paul’s letters to the churches. I trusted enough to see this as the way God must have wanted things to be. I hoped that somewhere in this established order, I would find a place to fulfill my campfire promise.<br /><em><br /></em><br /><strong>The next step towards a life of ministry seemed to be a Christian college so I ended up at Milligan College in Tennessee. </strong> Choosing a college has always seemed like far too important a decision to leave to an 18-year old, but in my case, I think I ended up exactly where I needed to be. After years in public schools, it was both strange and refreshing to learn alongside other people of faith. I loved the powerful experience of Christian community that is unique to the Christian college experience. But more than anything, I loved having a safe place to ask tough questions. We were encouraged to think about humanity, and art, and war, and faith, and what they all had to do with each other. College is where I learned the value of asking the right questions over having all the right answers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I loved my Bible classes. I knew many of the stories but loved learning about authorship questions and translation issues and contextualization. I loved learning about all the different hermeneutics we use without knowing we’re using them. It felt like I was getting frames to put around all the great pictures the church had given me. I learned that loving the Bible meant wrestling with the things it said. Sometimes education and coming-of-age can threaten young faith and cast doubts and shadows onto Scripture. But for me, Scripture became a living, breathing, choir of voices singing along to the world opening in front of me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><em><strong>There were a million things I learned that had nothing to do with gender. But since I was trying to sort out how to serve the church with my life, several gender-related conversations held my attention.</strong></em><br /><em><br /></em><br />For all the Old Testament stories I had learned growing up, I couldn’t remember ever hearing about Deborah, or Huldah. I started to appreciate how these stories of faithful women survived in a culture that thought of women as property to be traded along with the land and the livestock.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I listened carefully to the conversations about how Jesus destroyed cultural barriers by talking to women and valuing them. I came to a new appreciation of his deep talk with the Samaritan woman at the well. I saw new layers of meaning when he healed the bleeding woman and straightened the walk of the woman living with her head bent low. In all my Easter mornings, I had never noticed it was the women tending to his tomb who were the first to know he was back on his feet.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I learned about the communities receiving Paul’s letters and how he tailored the nuances of the Gospel to their particular needs. For the freewheeling, grace-abusing church at Corinth, Paul prescribed order. For the rules-bound, grace-neglecting church at Galatia, Paul called for freedom. I came to love how Paul always put the Gospel first. When he had to decide between this new understanding of how God was reconciling the world through Christ and the traditional way of understanding law, he chose the new way. When he had to decide between his own ego and reputation or the furthering of the Gospel, he never chose himself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I learned about Paul’s co-workers and paid attention to his greetings and personal admonitions at the end of his letters. I was surprised to meet Pheobe the Deacon, Junia the Apostle and Priscilla the co-teacher. I imagined them getting together with the other women who figured prominently into the early days of the church, like Lydia the bi-vocational pastor, and Tabitha the mercy-worker, and Philip’s prophesying daughters.<br /><em><br /></em><br /><a href="http://www.seejenwrite.com/?attachment_id=9124" rel="attachment wp-att-9124" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9124" height="197" src="http://www.seejenwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/womanchurchpew.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: right; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 15px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px;" title="womanchurchpew" width="298" /></a>With these new frames around the life of Jesus, the writings of Paul and the picture of the early church, I felt conflicted about the church of my youth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I started to wonder if the Christian Church movement had tried so hard to be faithful to certain texts that they missed the beautiful complexity of the bigger story. It seemed like so much work was going into obeying Paul’s note on keeping women from teaching but very little was said about anybody covering their heads. When had it been decided which notes of Paul’s were meant for a certain time and place and which ones were for all times and all places? I wrestled with what it means to be a part of a church tradition so bent on restoring the idyllic days of the first century church that they sometimes forget to do what Paul actually did and translate the Gospel to the world right in front of them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And when things got really quiet, I wondered how the church could treat me so well, and encourage me so much, but still see limits for how and where God could use me. I never doubted, and still don’t doubt, that it’s out of an attempt to be faithful to their best understanding of what God wants. But it made planning for the future a painful and confusing process. I knew all these questions and all this wrestling would eventually become intensely personal, as I tried to sort out what the calling by the campfire meant and how my gifts could or could not serve the church.<br /><em><br /></em><br /><a href="http://www.seejenwrite.com/?attachment_id=9127" rel="attachment wp-att-9127" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9127" height="396" src="http://www.seejenwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/nervous_speaker.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px;" title="nervous_speaker" width="320" /></a>The first time I spoke to a large crowd was largely by accident. I had been invited to speak during chapel and had politely refused. Or at least I thought I refused. Then I saw my name on the schedule to speak. I was to deliver a “Senior Sermon,” a tradition in the school’s spring chapel lineup. Despite my reservations, I got up and said some words. I was sick the whole next week. Depending on your interpretation, it was either a virus, or nerves, or God’s wrath.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I decided I needed more time, to learn and sort out what it meant for me, or for any of us, to further the story of God in our world. I went on to pursue a Master’s of Divinity at Emmanuel Christian Seminary. As I learned and participated in the Christian community of east Tennessee, the professors and pastors, along with my friends, continued to encourage me towards teaching and preaching. I accepted the occasional invitation to speak in chapel or to lead a class at church with some hesitation. I knew stepping into that role came with burdens. This is true for anyone who dares to stand in front of other people and speak to the mysteries of God but it felt particularly true as a female. For those who supported full inclusion of women into the life of the church, I wanted to represent women well. For those who did not, I struggled with creating conflict and having my girl-ness become a distraction from the greater purposes of gathering to hear from God.<br /><em><br /></em><br /><strong>All these tensions haunted me when it came time to find my first job.</strong> I still wasn’t sure what kind of job description I could fit in many of our churches. I knew there was a chance I would find myself serving a church that called me the “director” of something rather than a “minister” of anything. I might only be able to teach high school kids or younger. I also knew working at a bookstore instead of a church was a very real possibility. I had watched a number of other female friends leave the Christian church for denominations that would hire them and allow them to use all of their gifts in every area of the church. In some cases, I also saw the job search lead only to wounds and bitterness. Frozen with fear, I played an incredibly passive role in finding my first job. Professors were kind enough to recommend me to churches and, before long, I was considering different options. But truth be told, I only cared about one thing and it had nothing to do with being able to preach. My only sister was dying of cancer and I knew I had to be in Ohio near my family. That was my only condition for a job.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Through very little effort on my part, I was hired at a church in Dayton, Ohio. Long before my arrival, this church had prayed and struggled through what role women would play in their young church. The critical story for them was the very first one in the garden. When they read the story, they noticed that the separation between men and women was a result of the fall, and not God’s intention. They concluded that the coming of Christ was the ultimate do-over for creation and instead of living up to the world of the fall, the church should live up to the dream of the garden. Women had already served as elders and had preached occasionally for their worship services. To be in Ohio, to stay in the Christian church, and to be able to speak and preach seemed to be either an incredible stroke of luck or the hand of God. As a seminary student, I was hesitant to speculate on which it was, but years later, I try just to be grateful.<br /><em><br /></em><br /><a href="http://www.seejenwrite.com/?attachment_id=9130" rel="attachment wp-att-9130" style="outline: none; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9130" height="971" src="http://www.seejenwrite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Silencing-Women.jpg" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; outline: none; padding: 4px;" title="Silencing-Women" width="821" /></a>I have now served in this church for ten years. I’ve played different roles as the years have passed, in worship arts and discipleship. I serve as the “preacher” for our weekend services a few times a year, as well as teaching other classes. I have occasionally stepped into traditional pastoral roles, leading people through weddings or funerals. But I have also learned that the official affirmation of church leadership does not end the struggle of being a woman in ministry. Of course, ministry in itself is a difficult life for anyone, but there are issues I face as a woman that the girl by the fire never saw coming.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Even though the church affirms me in ministry, there are still cultural, perhaps even emotional, barriers for people to see me as a pastor. I see the people who get up and leave the church when they realize I am up there to preach and not just to deliver the announcements. More than once, I have had people from the church awkwardly introduce me to their friends as the “lady pastor.” I have made myself available for weddings and funerals only to be asked not to do it because they wanted a male pastor. If I get passed over for an opportunity or I’m left out of a meeting, I have to fight not to get swept up into assumptions about de facto sexism that wound me and everyone around me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When I step outside of our church and take part in events involving the larger Christian Church movement, I hesitate to reveal what I really do at the church. I know my life can easily become a divisive topic. I know there are people from my home church who struggle with knowing their support led me to preaching. I suspect they feel torn, supporting me personally but not supporting me ideologically.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This tension feels like nothing compared to the turmoil I often feel inside. Something as small as filling out the “profession” line on forms at the doctor’s office becomes a struggle over identity. Writing “pastor” feels somehow loaded, defiant, more complicated than paperwork should be.<br /><em><br /></em><br />When I listen in on the conversations going on in churches or online forums about the role of women in the church, I want to mourn, to battle, and sometimes hide. On my better days, I’m at least glad the conversation is happening. So often churches settle on answers without ever going through the difficult work of holding Scripture up next to the world, and their own hearts, and letting them push on each other. On my worse days, I find myself wanting to justify my own life and ministry. I want to defend myself and my choices, to demand that people see me as worthy when the real truth is that none of us are. I want to make the case that it’s exactly the submission people prescribe for me that brought me to where I am. What do I do with the way submission brought me to leadership? What are people afraid God will do if I preach? If I sense God on the move in my life, am I just being fooled?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There are also days when I see just how much bigger this all is than me. I see how all of us are called to be conduits of the good news of Jesus in the world. I see how the Gospel is written on our own lives through the work of God’s Spirit and how we are all called to tell the story. It doesn’t matter whether it’s over a conversation, or in a meeting, or a church service. Any one of us, on any given day, might be just the right person to proclaim the story of God at work in the world. We may also be just the right hindrance for a person. This is the chance God takes—to tell a perfect story through people whose only qualification is their unworthiness. This is why the broken, beautiful church is the absolute wrong and right vehicle for a message about grace.<br /><em><br /></em><br />So if this is the call of the church, what story does our view on women tell the world about who God is and how God works? More importantly, how does the life of the church reflect the reconciling work of God? Are we modeling separation where we should be modeling cooperation? What are we telling the women and the men of the world about who God calls us all to be? Are we settling for a lesser picture of what the church can be, and ultimately a lesser kingdom than God wants to bring?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This is partly about what we should tell the young girls gathered around the fire. But it’s also about what it means for the whole world that the church is the Bride of Christ.</strong></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-13087317273185756312013-06-09T16:58:00.002-07:002013-06-09T16:58:57.603-07:00<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">"It is easy to be for yesterday's change. It is quite another to make the change your own time requires." -Bill Clinton, in a speech honoring the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This is so true, especially in the call for gender justice. As Christians, we like to think that we would have been on the right side of the civil rights struggle, but why are so many Christians still uncomforta</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">ble with the basic concept that women are fully equal in the church and the home? Why is the church so behind on so many important issues to women? Those who hold to limiting gender role theology but claim to speak for justice are for the easy change of yesterday. Confronting the ways that our own flawed theology undermines women is the hard uncomfortable change that God calls us to today. Working to uplift women worldwide from the scourge of gender violence and abuse is indeed the moral challenge of our day. That there is resistance shows where the moral edge is in God's continuing call for a higher justice.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16085702196734270826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-57825363616744846482013-05-30T05:37:00.001-07:002013-05-30T13:06:35.814-07:00Do You See These Two Faces of Adam in Our World Today? by Emily Nielsen Jones<br />
Women's Liberty Bell Blog is so grateful for all the male allies that have "chimed in" this past month about how they have seen and been apart of the movement of men "stepping up" to lay aside the privileged position religion has historically given to males. (See <a href="http://womens-libertybell-chime-in-with-us.blogspot.com/2013/04/enlisting-male-allies-stepping-up.html?m=1">http://womens-libertybell-chime-in-with-us.blogspot.com/2013/04/enlisting-male-allies-stepping-up.html?m=1</a> and past postings to review the conversation.) I don't know about you, but I have always been so drawn to and touched by stories of people reaching across lines of difference to work for justice for another: Christians hiding Jews during the Holocaust, white abolitionists fighting along side black abolitionists to end slavery, the 1% standing with the 99%, Protestants building a bridge with Catholics and vice versa, Israelis advocating for a just peace for Palestinians, the countless other examples of people/groups who have worked to transcend and dismantle an unjust ranking system which privileges one group over another.<br />
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Indeed, all of our world's great social movements which have continued to "bend the moral arc of the universe" toward justice (Martin Luther King) have been rooted in some movement of common humanity/empathy across lines of difference, a shared commitment to fight for justice not just for one's own particulular group but also for the rights and cause of another. Without some sense of shared commitment connecting one group's struggle with the larger human struggle for Liberty and Justice for All all we are left with is separate groups vying for power and jockeying for their own rights and privileges at the expense of others.<br />
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When it comes to working for gender justice, empathy across the gender divide is what the world needs more than anything is to transcend our base we-them tendencies which see things in terms of a zero-sum gain, a gain for you is a loss of power for me. We all know what gender battles look like and feel like on a personal level... either covertly or overtly trying to "man up" or "woman up" to get the upper-hand in a relationship. On a collective level, gender battles are not different. From the fledgling beginnings of the women's movement, advancements of women's sphere and rights have met resistance from men and from invisible forces in society to preserve the imbalance of power between the genders which have made females the "lesser than" gender with restricted rights, human agency, dignity, power to contribute to society and pursue life opportunities. <br />
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What is it that enables a man to transcend these "powering up" we-them dynamics and not feel threatened or diminished by women's advancement on both on a collective and an individual level? I find it really interesting today to see the broad spectrum of different masculine "faces" responding in various ways to this particular stage of the "women's movement" where we see as a global culture a large scale commitment to gender balance as a human and social ideal to be worked toward but we also see forces of resistance every where in various forms, efforts to hit the rewind button and put some limit on what women can or cannot do, men's movements all over the world to "reclaim their rightful place as the leaders/decision-makers of the family, religious body, and society. Change is hard, and always involves some level of backlash even as things are moving forward. When it comes to changing deeply entrenched gender norms which govern how we all exercise are God-given power and agency and gifts in the world, change seems to be extra slow and vulnerable to backlash, regression, and either-or power dynamics.<br />
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<i><b>How can we together transcend these tiring zero-sum power dynamics and find greater solidarity across the gender line to work toward a more gender-balanced world? </b></i><br />
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<i><b>What is the role of faith in transforming the women's movement from a "women's issue" into a broader movement of justice in our world?</b></i><br />
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Particularly within faith contexts, where religious gender ideology is appealed to as divine sanction for exclusive male authority models in the church and the family, without men coming along side of women in human solidarity with passion and conviction to take another look at the "sacred gender cows" which have been used by our religious traditions to justify exclusion and subordination of women, women's basic human equality will remain tenuous at best... in it's own separate category, separate from the larger stream of justice... a "women's issue" disconnected from the larger themes of scripture... a never-ending battle ground vulnerable to backlash and regression depending on the cultural and religious winds of the day. <br />
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<b>Glimpsing Adam</b><br />
If you look around the world today, we see so many hopeful signs of women rising up within highly patriarchal cultures to claim their basic human rights, heal from abuse, reclaim their voices and their full God-given human agency and potential and also work for a more just world for all. I wrote another article which I called "Glimpsing Eve" in which I shared how I see two faces of "Eve" in our world, in and through my work with the Imago Dei Fund: <i>Eve Rising up to Heal Our World</i> and <i>Eve Victimized & Submissive</i>. <a href="http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/2011-10-20-glimpsing-eve-arise-e-newsletter">http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/2011-10-20-glimpsing-eve-arise-e-newsletter</a><br />
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Both faces of Eve are alive and well today. What about Adam? What faces does He show today in this particular moment of time where gender equality/gender balance is a presumed ideal to be worked toward in most cultural contexts yet there are signs of regression and backlash everywhere. In my work as a donor activist and in my involvement as a Christian in our local community and broader evangelical world, I see two faces of Adam, not the literal historical figure, more so the collective masculine life force in the world. <br />
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<i><b>What flavor of masculinity do you see around you? Do you see these two faces too? Shades of gray in between?</b></i><br />
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<b>the beautiful face of "Adam": a redeemed, empowering masculinity</b><br />
I was recently at a gathering of pastors and their wives in Haiti (there are not many female ministers in Haiti) convened by a group called Beyond Borders which is working to create a change of consciousness around the underlying power dynamics which underlie gender-based violence in Haiti. It was the most inspiring, very tangible conversation around everyday gender dynamics, male presumption to power in all its forms, and the vision of moving from a hierarchical to a partnership model of gender relations. One of the people leading the dialogue was this beautiful charismatic Haitian man who was so on-board with gender equality, so passionate and winsome in his demeanor, and so refreshing in his solidarity across the gender line with women who in that society still have such an uphill battle to have an equal voice and dignity in society. <br />
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I wish I had a better picture of this man, but I carry him in my heart as a "face of Adam", a beautiful empowering picture of a redeemed masculinity which is "man enough" to share power with women, affirm our differences yet find our common humanity, and embrace each of our forms of strength without any need to dominate or power-over the other. What stuck with me most about this man was how he was not just "standing with" women, not just supporting a women's cause, rather he was invested himself in working toward a society where men and women in very practical tangible ways can live in mutuality, shared power, and true complementarity without needing to prop up one gender over the other. I could not help but express to him and the group how beautiful men are when they are unambiguously onboard with gender equality, not just giving lip service to the idea of it, but putting some skin in the game and showing in tangible ways their solidarity across the gender divide to create a more gender-balanced world that is not just good for women but for all humankind.<br />
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Do you see this face in the men in your life? I do! Thank you to you all. : )<br />
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<b>the threatened face of "Adam": a retrenching, powering-up masculinity</b><br />
I wish I could say that my world, our world was filled with only this beautiful "face of Adam", but the reality is there are forces of gender regression in our world, mostly wrapped in religion, that seem bent on preserving the unequal gender scales which have created a whole myriad of humanitarian problems which continue to keep girls and women around the world in a subordinate, victimized place and prop up male privilege to a greater sphere of agency, respect and power in society. Pictures speak a thousand words. This picture and article below featuring male students in Afghanistan protesting what should be seen as a very basic bill to protect women's human rights to me captures this other face of Adam that we see in various forms throughout our world: the threatened male who has grown so accustomed to women being submissive and subordinate and diminished that he cannot even see how he is twisting religion to preserve his own presumption to being a "higher ranking" human.<br />
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<a href="http://dawn.com/2013/05/22/afhan-students-protest-womens-rights-decree/%20AP">http://dawn.com/2013/05/22/afhan-students-protest-womens-rights-decree/ AP</a><br />
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</span><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 22px;"><strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #025387; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">KABUL: Hard-line Islamist students protested in the Afghan capital demanding the repeal of a presidential decree for women’s rights that they say is un-Islamic.</strong></span></st1:place></st1:city></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">More than 200 male students protested in front of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Kabul</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place> on Wednesday against the decree, which includes a ban on child marriage and forced marriage, makes domestic violence a crime and says rape victims cannot be prosecuted for adultery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Protester Fazel Hadi, 25, said the decree was ”imposed by foreigners” and violates Islamic Shariah law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Conservative lawmakers on Saturday blocked enshrining the decree’s provisions in legislation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The backlash highlights the tenuousness of women’s rights provisions enacted in the 12 years since the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The international force that toppled the Taliban is now preparing to withdraw.</span></div>
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Yes, this is an extremely scary face of masculinity struggling to preserve its place of power, but if look look beneath the surface of all of the religious "reasons" used across all faith traditions, all cultures, and across time to exclude, marginalize, or diminish women's spheres of agency in society--whether it be denying women the right to vote, to attend school, to avoid early marriage, to own property, to live free of violence, and to advance into positions of leadership however they are gifted--do not all these rationales boil down to men over the course of religious history being a little too willingly to accept at "face value" a religious interpretation which has given them an unfair advantage? The same scene of an angry mob of men protesting women's expanding sphere of involvement has been repeated throughout the course of history. (The very first gathering of women abolitionists (who were not even working yet for women's rights) was met with an angry male mob which burned down the building they were in justified in their "rightness" with their Bibles in hand.)<br />
<br />
Yes, most people of faith, even those with conservative views of "gender roles" do not advocate violence. However, in this world where gender equality is a presumed ideal and facet of our collective values, those who are advocating excluding women from leadership roles in any form based on some notion of it being "un-Christian" or "un-Muslim" or un-feminine are making a statement which to many girls and women today can feel aggressive and like a diminishment of who we are collectively as women. Even little infringements much less egregious as this story below send ripples out into the world which if you "scale up" make women's standing in the world feel very tenuous. <br />
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May we all work to show our highest and best face to the world, both as men and as women, and seek to live in solidarity with one another creating a more just, gender-balanced world where all humans can thrive and flourish together.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-37646578542534214762013-05-11T12:30:00.002-07:002013-05-11T12:30:59.481-07:00Why I Can No Longer Defend the Ministry of Women in the Church by Steve Holmes<br />
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<strong style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why I Can No Longer Defend the Ministry of Women in the Church</strong></div>
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<img align="left" alt="" height="119" hspace="8" scale="0" src="http://www.cbeinternational.org/files/u1/arise/images/holmes-steve-2_0.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); height: auto; margin: 0px 0px 18px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;" vspace="8" width="85" /><em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Steve Holmes is a Baptist minister, currently teaching theology at St Mary’s College, St Andrews, Scotland. He blogs about theology and culture from an Evangelical perspective at <a href="http://steverholmes.org.uk/blog/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Shored Fragments</a>.</em></div>
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<em style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> The following column is posted with permission from his blog.</em></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://blog.cbeinternational.org/2013/05/no-defence-needed/">http://blog.cbeinternational.org/2013/05/no-defence-needed/</a> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have defended the ministry of women in the church in public for a while now, including on my blog. I don’t think I can do it any longer. Not because of any lack of calling or gifting in their ministry, but because of a lack in mine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Take Phoebe Palmer. She began to be involved in leading a Bible study in New York around 1830. She soon received invitations to preach across the USA and in the UK. Something like 25,000 people were converted by her ministry. 25,000 people. Converted. Does that need defense? Really?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She visited prisons regularly, ran a society helping poor people in need of medical attention, and was involved in an ambitious project to challenge the new problem of urban poverty through the provision of low-cost housing, free schooling, and employment. She had a particular concern for orphans throughout her life. Challenging injustice on a grand scale. Do you want me to defend that?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Promise of the Father,</em> and 20-odd other books, she stressed the idea that God could and would give the blessing of holiness in an instant to a believer, and taught that holiness would be gained by faith. This teaching gave rise to the Holiness Movement, which by 1900 had changed the beliefs and practices of almost every evangelical church in America and Britain. Her ideas shaped the early Pentecostal movement, and the modern charismatic movement.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She formed the spirituality that formed me. She changed the world. Who am I to even think of defending her? By any standards, she was one of the most powerful preachers, and most influential leaders, of nineteenth-century American evangelicalism. For me to try to defend her ministry would be as ridiculous as a worm trying to defend a lion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She did not often encounter criticism for presuming to preach as a woman, but eventually she wrote a defense of the ministry of women, <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Promise of the Father</em> (1859). She argued that it was a clear mark that the gift of the Holy Spirit had come that women as well as men could “prophesy,” which to her meant preach powerfully and evangelistically to spread the gospel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the face of so evident a work of the Spirit as was seen in her life, who am I to even consider the question of whether God had called her to preach? It would be offensive, presumptuous—approaching blasphemous—to even accept that the question can be asked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And then there’s Catherine Booth. And Mary Dyer. And Catherine of Sienna. And Mother Julian. And Rose Clapham, all-but forgotten, whose first sermon, preached when she was 18, saw 700 miners converted to Christ. Defend that? Why?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There’s a thousand stories like it that I know. Ten thousand times ten thousand that have gone untold, no doubt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And I think of women who I have the privilege to know, who I sit in awe of, some of whom graciously allow me to call them friends. If I could preach one tenth as powerfully or effectively as Ness Wilson, or Bev Murrill, or Miriam Swaffield, or if I had a tiny portion of the vision and capacity to inspire change of Cathy Madavan or Natalie Collins, or if I had some little echo of the pastoral wisdom and visible holiness of Pat Took or Ruth Goldbourne, or if I could even once in my life make something happen the way Wendy Beech-Ward or Ann Holt do every day—then I might think the question of whether these women are permitted by God to lead and preach was worth thinking about.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As it is, no. I can’t defend their ministries. I am not worthy to.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I will continue to fight sexism and bad teaching wherever I see it. I will continue to explain, as well as I can, the truth of Scripture, that it is a crucial mark of the Kingdom that God calls women and men indifferently to every ministry. I want to give more time in coming months and years to tracing the real harm that bad theologies of gender do. I might even write my big book on a theology of gender one of these years. (The story roughly runs: Augustine meets Judith Butler and they get on surprisingly well…)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But I’m not going to try to illuminate the sun. And I’m not going to try to dampen the sea. And I’m not, any longer, going to try to defend the ministry of women in the church.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Do you agree? Disagree?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">THIS ARTICLE IS REPRINTED FROM CBE’S WEEKLY <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ARISE</em> COLUMN.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">YOU CAN READ IT ANYTIME BY CLICKING THE ICON ON THE RIGHTHAND SIDE OF THE SCROLL HOME PAGE.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-14455615193746626982013-05-07T06:41:00.003-07:002013-05-07T06:42:49.028-07:00Staying Humble as it Gets Personal by Rob Dixon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Sometimes, you can't own a value until it gets personal. </b><br />
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At least that's the story of my journey regarding gender equality. Along the way, I've gone from someone who holds a value but has little conviction to someone who is a determined advocate.<br />
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God's grace to me was that I grew up in a church where women and men could exercise their gifts equally and without limitations with regard to gender. On top of that, as I grew in my faith, many of my early mentors were women. Still, when I got to college and my faith begain to bloom, gender equality remained something on the periphery, something that I merely valued, as opposed to a "hill to die on." I was no gender equality revolutionary. <br />
<br />
<b>But then it got personal.</b><br />
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In my first year as the staff leader of my campus ministry chapter, a local pastor who barely knew me sat me down and told me that because I was allowing women to teach the Scriptures in the ministry I was leading, I would be held accountable for my false teaching.<br />
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Wow. The accusation was painful for me, and it sent me into a months-long quest to learn as much as possible about the theology around the topic of women in leadership. I read, studied, prayed, talked, debated and then read some more. And when I was done with that intense burst of learning, my understanding of the Scriptures continued to lead me to the conviction that men and women are to be full partners together in ministry and, in particular, that women are to be free (better yet, empowered) to lead in the Kingdom according to their gifting.<br />
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But here’s the catch. When I emerged from this season of learning, I was militant. I mean, if you disagreed with me on the issue, I had no time for you. Looking back, the experience of being rebuked very nearly turned me into a rebuker. Pretty quickly, the issue of women in authority became a litmus test for me: if you agreed with me, we were good. If you didn’t, we had problems.<br />
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Thankfully, God provoked a trusted mentor to challenge my posture. My friend sat me down one day and basically said, “Rob, I’m concerned that you’re headed toward becoming like that guy. You need to learn how to hold your convictions with humility.”<br />
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“Hold your convictions with humility.” That was the word I needed to hear. <br />
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Because we need that posture in order to engage with others around these issues in healthy ways. Particularly when things are unclear or in dispute, we must be humble. <br />
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These days, my journey has taken me into the world of thinking about my male privilege. Specifically, I'm considering how Christian men ought to respond to the reality of our socially-granted privilege and power. For the last 6 months, I've been blogging on this stuff twice a week, every week at <a href="http://challengingtertullian.com/">challengingtertullian.com</a>.<br />
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As I've gone along, I've experienced a wide range of emotions. This stuff is complex! At once it's been interesting and encouraging, uncomfortable and vexing. <br />
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<b>And, above all else, it's been personal.</b>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04796293075860350768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-69861035034399501782013-04-30T19:54:00.000-07:002013-04-30T20:04:03.775-07:00Struggling Together - Part One by Mickey SanchezMickey Sanchez is a Harvard Chaplain, representing InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Graduate & Faculty Ministries.<br />
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In this post I’d like to share a bit about my own experience
supporting my wife as she wrestled with gender equality issues while in
seminary. (In a future post I hope to share about my experience supporting her as a full-time working mom in ministry)<o:p></o:p></div>
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My wife is a gifted woman and while we were both in seminary
we tried to sort out what biblical gender roles meant for her work in the church
and at home. We went to a seminary that had professors from each camp in the
debate and my wife won a scholarship to do extensive research and interviews
with some of the leading evangelical figures in that debate. That said, we each
had personal challenges in looking into this issue.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We both came from a complementarian church that we loved. That
church had a lot to do with my own initial growth in faith right after I became
a Christian and it laid the groundwork for how I would approach God and the Bible,
which is still operative for me today. My wife and I fell in love within that
church’s community and hoped to serve with them in the future. So I was
somewhat wary of moving toward an egalitarian position which would leave us
outside that church/denomination’s doctrinal boundaries. Also, I thought much
of what the main pastor taught was right and was worried that disagreeing with him
meant I was making an intellectual error. Moreover, the time it took to
rigorously look into this debate concerned me as I had other questions I wanted
to look into as well. All that to say, I had reasons to be disinclined toward
delving too deeply into this issue myself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, my church’s emphasis on the gospel and its
implication paved the way for me to be supportive of my wife as she wrestled
with the gender roles question. For one, the gospel gave me compassion for my
wife and a desire to help with this time consuming project. If God could be so
put upon to leave his royal throne for my sake, the least I could do for my wife
was take the time to make this long journey with her. Also, Jesus empowered
people for ministry and I wanted to make sure I did that for my wife as I
thought she had a lot to offer the church from her giftings. Beyond that, I became a Christian because I
followed the evidence against my will and found the gospel to be true. Why
should I stop following the evidence now with this issue just to save time or
for comfort’s sake? And if the evidence pointed to the egalitarian position,
then we’re keeping roughly half of the church from fully utilizing all their
giftings!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps most practically, though, the gospel helped me to anchor
my wife in the midst of her research. She had such a desire to get this
question right, to please God and not disobey him, that she feared God’s
judgment if she was wrong – a fear that some complementarians unfortunately encourage.
But the gospel is not that we are saved because we have all our theology right
or because we’re smarter than others. We’re saved by grace. So even if we made
a mistake here, and we’re all likely mistaken on something as we’re not saved because
of our intelligence, God’s grace would cover us. That allayed the fear and
allowed us to think more clearly together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It took a while to sort it all out, but I’m glad I
journeyed with her on this. It opened my eyes to various struggles women go
through and how men could do more to help them. For example, in seminary I
learned that a number of women struggle with low confidence in their opinions
and in their ability to disagree with others, even though they have good reasons to do
so. Despite my wife’s natural confidence in other areas, she struggled in this
debate to have confidence in her opinion at a point when I thought we both
could be confident of the egalitarian position. I realized I could help her
grow in this area, not by giving her another authority figure to trust, but by helping
her trust the gospel so her fear would melt away. With that gone, she was better able to make up
her own mind, thanks be to God.<o:p></o:p></div>
Mickey Sanchezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13293292395181459134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-65167771203466462162013-04-30T09:53:00.000-07:002013-04-30T11:00:54.834-07:00Co-Conspiritors by Tom Yaccino<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEE62P-pSz8YRGIZJce6FzFg5YPoaOa38UOkTJpKn2hpgokJYLC_CTdSO549wDQs3rT3Ci90HhQ146rh5-OtxSqrD9vEJ5jRM4NCBRzEcoADkdVn7S1Z8O3JaZdxT_e-zZw5SH2tLMA/s1600/Yaccinos,jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEE62P-pSz8YRGIZJce6FzFg5YPoaOa38UOkTJpKn2hpgokJYLC_CTdSO549wDQs3rT3Ci90HhQ146rh5-OtxSqrD9vEJ5jRM4NCBRzEcoADkdVn7S1Z8O3JaZdxT_e-zZw5SH2tLMA/s1600/Yaccinos,jpg.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dee and Tom Yaccino are co-connectors and founders of Del Camino Connection, an organization passionate about serving and supporting church based networks in Latin America that live out the call to be agents of change and reconcilers for Christ and the Kingdom of God here on earth. DCC offers consulting and coaching services to churches that are passionate about partnering with the Global Church. They help churches and organizations leverage their shared spiritual, human, and financial resources in response to Jesus’ mission to make all things new. Together, Tom and Dee work to facilitate global connections among churches to embody Christ's dream that we be One, as we participate in revealing the love and Justice of God in our communities. <a href="http://www.delcaminoconnection.org/"><span class="s1">www.delcaminoconnection.org</span></a></span></div>
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My name is Tom Yaccino. I am Dee Yaccino’s husband, friend, partner in ministry and parenthood, and co conspirator with her in God’s amazing and beautiful Kingdom project here on earth. It is remarkable that the way I just introduced myself, as her husband, might seem odd to others, especially among many with whom I share a common faith and mission in Jesus Christ. I say odd because for many, her role should be recognized as secondary or complimentary to mine such that I am seen as “above” her.</div>
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I must confess that, more often than not, I too easily fall into the cultural and religious framework, which places more importance and attention on the male in that partnership than the woman. I confess that when Dee feels that sense of being invisible or a mere appendage to me in conversations or gatherings – even those of the Kingdom sort – and when she makes her uncomfortable feelings known to me, I have been known to question her feelings: “Really? I don’t think they mean that!” “Huh?!? I didn’t catch that vibe at all in their interaction with <i>us</i>…”</div>
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I confess that I am a product of the cultural, socioeconomic, religious constructs that represent the patriarchal system that dominates our world and particular faith context in the west. And I confess that it is incredibly easy for me to remain blind to how that system diminishes, controls and determines the role and responsibilities of women – of Dee, my covenant partner in life.</div>
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But as followers of Jesus, we have been redeemed by His blood and restored supernaturally to our true identities as icons of the Lord. We are privileged participants in the amazing, grace-infused, holy community that God intended for humankind and all of creation. In this light, my complicity with the dominant system is shaken to the foundations. The Holy Spirit is breaking down the hard casing that the world has built up around my heart and mind which casts parts in this play with pre-determined roles for men and women. The Spirit is exposing me to the Way, the truth and the life that announces another Way – Way that was made possible and promotes community and connectedness without domination, or positional power. </div>
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Dee and I lived for 25 years in Latin America, a strange and wonderful place where machismo (male domination) and marianismo (reverence for feminine virtue, purity and moral strength, as made in the image of Mary) co-exist, but where men definitely dominate the scene. As a God-gifted leader in ministry, this was a challenging sea for Dee to navigate. Not only did she survive, but she was able to influence leaders and communities, loving them into new understandings of Jesus and His Kingdom; not without pain and struggle, but with a lot of grace and perseverance. Dee became a deep friend and partner in ministry with my own Dominican best friend, who when we first met, was prejudiced against “gringos” and women! She served the bride of Christ as a teaching pastor, elder, counselor and dear friend. In the ministry God has called us to, she is the mind and heart behind all of our awareness-raising, educational, paradigm-shifting materials and workshops. She is an anthropologist, a pastor & teacher, a researcher and now is currently a PhD fellow where she is being celebrated as a woman in a male-dominated academic institution. She is being valued and invited to teach because of her capabilities and unique contribution. </div>
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On the enneagram Dee is an “8”; I am a “4.” We are both influencers and leaders but of a very different stripe. Being a female “8” in a male-dominated world permeated with “type A” power-centered leadership models is no easy thing. But Dee has stayed true to herself and has spoken up even in the face of the pain and rejection that often results. She flows into who God has created her to be – despite the “man” made barriers, some that I admittedly have built – and she leads.</div>
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She is an incredible mom, who hasn’t stopped being a mom in our home, while she ministers and serves and leads ministry outside of the home. I thank God for her example as she lives in the tension with grace and flows into her identity as a woman, created in the image and likeness of God, the creator and sustainer of life. She leads, cares for, and parents with me our 4 wonderful children which include 3 amazingly talented girls (19, 17 and 13) who are like their mother (& father) gifted with leadership, as well as one amazing little boy (6). They all see how God’s designs for life and wholeness are working out in males and females. I shudder to think that my girls will be limited in their full and free expression of who they were created to be by God, especially among well-int<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=989256863152316644" name="13e42722677992a0__GoBack"></a>entioned fellow believers. May they follow in their mother’s footsteps as women and grow into their full identity and design as God has intended for them be that leaders, artists, influencers, servants, etc., without being controlled, limited or “allowed” by others. </div>
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I am so thankful for Dee. I am so impacted by her life. As a man, who is recognized as a leader among my peers, I not only acknowledge that her support and encouragement have helped shape me into the servant leader that I hopefully am, but I acknowledge that her leadership is one that I am privileged to be able to follow."</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-15904167263055845752013-04-24T08:30:00.000-07:002013-04-24T08:31:49.746-07:00Mutuality in Ministry -- My Story<style>
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</style> My name is Doug Calhoun, Co-Pastor at Redeemer Community Church, Needham, MA. <br />
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I'd like to address the issue of gender equality from a
biographical perspective. From my very early days becoming a Christian at university,
women played a deep and powerful role in my spiritual journey. I was keenly
aware of the spiritual depth gifts and maturity of the sisters in our campus
fellowship and their important influence on my journey with Jesus Christ.
Although the structure was fairly hierarchical, for me these women were
partners with me in the gospel. Actually, most of them were further down the
road spiritually, people from whom I was learning ministry. </div>
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This perspective was reinforced when as a single person I was
living with a family on Long Island during my first staff assignment with
InterVarsity. The couple were both long time Christian workers. The husband was
a chaplain at a Christian prep school; the wife had her own separate ministry
all over Long Island as a preacher, teacher and prayer warrior. They exhibited
great respect for each other and great mutuality in their spiritual journey.
The way they lived their lives before me demonstrated that the woman was equal
partners in the kingdom of God, not incapacitated or less than a man.</div>
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I met my wife Adele when we were both working as
InterVarsity staff workers. She was two years older than me, already had a
theological degree, and had already worked two years in missionary service
abroad. Once we got married, my own assumption was that the Holy Spirit was
still alive and well in her life and would use her in my life. She however had
residual effects of family upbringing which presumed that as the husband (the
head) I would now be the one to initiate in all matters of prayer or devotion.
She would feel a prompting to pray from the Holy Spirit and then be frustrated
when I did not say something. With some confusion, I would say, as husband,
that did not mean I alone hear God and initiate spiritual conversations or
action. She herself was responsible for what God was telling her, not for
herself alone but for us together. By no means did that relieve me of being a
full partner, but it was a struggle for Adele to shed the old binders and
operate more fully and equally in our home.</div>
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For the next 35+ years, we've been living into that reality
of what it means for each of us to bring ourselves fully to the marriage and to
ministry. We have been fortunate to work together officially and unofficially
throughout that time. Adele has great gifts as a communicator, spiritual
director and pastor. I have my own gifts and ministry in teaching, preaching, and
missions. We operate fine individually. But we find something very interesting.
Whenever we have spoken or taught together, that is when we received the most
comments back from people. There was something holistic and healthy to have
both a woman and a man – especially a husband and wife – working together as a
team presenting the topic. </div>
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We have been very grateful these last five years to now
serve officially as Co-Pastors at our church. We consistently hear from our
congregation that the greatest impact of our ministry is the seeing image of
God – male and female, female and male – speaking together, serving together,
loving together, practicing hospitality together and doing their marriage in
front of people.</div>
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I'm not by nature a political animal. However I do see the
rising need of men to stand up for and advocate on behalf of women, so that
they might experience the fullness of their personhood, their ministries, and
their professional careers. That also means that we have to pay attention to
places where men especially act in such a way that women are implicitly or explicitly
denigrated. That will have to be the subject of a future post.</div>
Doug Calhounhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08693705822743399515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-91222720659265684662013-04-16T04:23:00.003-07:002013-04-16T04:23:42.615-07:00Praise Her at the Gates by Ken Wytsma<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"></span><br />
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Ken Wytsma is a leader, innovator, and social entrepreneur respected for his insight and collaborative spirit. He is the president of Kilns College, where he teaches courses on philosophy and justice. He is the founder of The Justice Conference—an annual international conference that introduces men and women to a wide range of organizations and conversations relating to biblical justice and God’s call to give our lives away.</div>
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Ken is a consultant and creative advisor to nonprofits such as World Relief and Food for the Hungry. Ken is also a church planter and the lead pastor at Antioch Church. The son of a Dutch immigrant, Ken lives in Bend, Oregon, with his wife, Tamara, and their four daughters.</div>
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Ken’s first book, <em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://kenwytsma.com/pursuingjustice" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live and Die for Bigger Things</a></strong>, </em>was recently released by Thomas Nelson Publishers. <a href="http://kenwytsma.com/pursuingjustice/">http://kenwytsma.com/pursuingjustice/</a></div>
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<a href="http://thejusticeconference.com/_img/speakers/Speakers_MAIN_Home_KenWytsma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="http://thejusticeconference.com/_img/speakers/Speakers_MAIN_Home_KenWytsma.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><i>from Women's Liberty Bell Blog</i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">As we pray for the victims of yesterday's cruel act of inhumanity, let us </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">commit ourselves to conquering all forms of evil & fear with good, to building bridges of peace, and to working together to create a more just, humane world that honors the full humanity of all human beings around the globe, right here at our doorsteps & within our own homes. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">Tragedies have a way of clarifying deep within our souls the </span><i style="font-size: 12px;">lesser</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"> from the "bigger things" of Life. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;">As people of faith, our task it seems in this generation--where our world has for centuries seen and continues to see the </span><i style="font-size: 12px;">lesser side of religion--</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">is </span><u style="font-size: 12px;">without fear</u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"> to look <i>within</i> and, with God's help, to courageously let go of anything & everything that builds walls instead of bridges and <i>does not ring with the </i></span><i style="font-size: 12px;">full spiritual & moral clarity of our north star ideals</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">--</span>the bigger things<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">--</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">of our faith and our shared humanity. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thank you Ken for your passion for the higher ideals of justice that lie at the very core of Biblical faith. Thank you for this humble message within your own Christian community to not fall into the familiar exegetical traps which seek to prove loyalty to scripture by "putting women in their place". Thank you for your solidarity in affirming the beauty and goodness of living fully into our shared humanity as male and female created differently, but equally in God's image. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #727272; font-family: Helvetica, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><a href="http://kenwytsma.com/2013/04/10/praiser-her-at-the-gates/">http://kenwytsma.com/2013/04/10/praiser-her-at-the-gates/</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><div class="post-5654 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-messages category-women" id="post-5654" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
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Praise Her at the Gates</h2>
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Maybe this is controversial, but we need to make sure we’re talking sense and using biblical logic when we talk about women.</div>
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Here is the message, “Praise Her at the Gates,” from Antioch’s Proverbs Sermon Series. The title is taken from the last chapter of Proverbs and the exhortation to praise noble women at the gates of the city and in the public square.</div>
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May we all be found praising women at the gates!</div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="366" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/55316599?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=268fa5" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="650"></iframe></div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/55316599" style="color: black; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Proverbs Part 6 | Praise Her at the Gates</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/antiochchurch" style="color: black; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Antioch Church</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/" style="color: black; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Vimeo</a>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif; line-height: 20px;"><em style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-style: italic !important; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">"</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice" </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.</span></em></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ken is one of the leading forces behind The Justice Conference which took place this past February in Philadelphia. Check out the speaker videos <a href="http://thejusticeconference.com/videos2013.html">http://thejusticeconference.com/videos2013.html</a> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">including a few inspiring talks around the centrality of gender justice in the larger movement of justice by Sheryl Wu Dunn, Mimi Haddad, Chaig Ling, and Brenda Salter McNeil and others too numerous to mention. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Consider coming to the Justice Conference in 2014 and becoming part of this movement to keep <i>bending the moral arc toward justice </i>within our faith communities and within our world. </span><a href="http://thejusticeconference.com/">http://thejusticeconference.com/</a> </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-24302944862130212013-04-13T06:33:00.000-07:002013-04-13T06:33:27.564-07:00What I Think About Empowering Women by David Drury<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">David Drury</strong></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> has a passion for teaching on the deep mysteries of God’s Word in a way that is relevant to the next generation but true to the orthodox Christian faith. His writing and speaking comes with a healthy dose of both heart and humor—but is centered on teaching scripture. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><a href="http://www.daviddrury.com/2012/06/05/i-have-big-news-announcement-about-my-future/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">He serves as Chief of Staff</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><a href="http://www.wesleyan.org/bgs/bio_lyon" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Jo Anne Lyon</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">, the General Superintendent of the</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><a href="http://www.wesleyan.org/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Wesleyan Church</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> and previously served as Executive Pastor and Connections Pastor at two large churches for 10 years. David is the architect of the all-church spiritual formation journey </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SoulShift</em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> which includes more than 30 related published or free resources for churches engaging in the Shift journey in their church. He is also co-author of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://oursoulshift.com/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">SoulShift</a>: The Measure of a Life Transformed</em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> along with Steve DeNeff the spiritual formation book which inspired the all-church resources for adults, youth & children.</span><a href="http://www.daviddrury.com/2013/03/08/what-i-think-about-empowering-women/">http://www.daviddrury.com/2013/03/08/what-i-think-about-empowering-women/</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">On International Women's Day, David posted the following statement on Facebook: “When they question the idea of empowering women I question men on why they are so threatened by the idea of empowered women.” It caused some conversation to develop. <img alt=":-)" class="wp-smiley" src="http://www.daviddrury.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: LatoRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><br />
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Says David, "Let me clarify:...</div>
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Maybe you have other reactions, but here are<strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> 5 things I think of when I think of “Empowering Women.”</strong></div>
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1) First of all, I think I made a misstatement It’s not just “men” who I question. Some women question the idea of empowering women as well, and likewise I question them back on why they are threatened by the idea. “Giving more power to women” in a variety of ways has nothing to do with any “biblical” approach, I should say. Many people just plain don’t like the idea of women having more power in any realm (politics, education, family, legal, economic, etc.) This is much bigger than just religion and “women in ministry.” When I think of “empowering women” (meaning, giving more power to women, in a variety of forms) <strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am reminded of so many people who find that idea fundamentally threatening and off-putting to them.</strong> It is dismissed out of hand by some, and mocked by others, with a not-too-subtle misogyny exposing itself. I find that hard to stomach.</div>
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<a href="http://www.daviddrury.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Screen-Shot-2013-03-08-at-2.38.34-PM.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 2.38.34 PM" class="alignleft wp-image-2315" height="136" src="http://www.daviddrury.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Screen-Shot-2013-03-08-at-2.38.34-PM-300x227.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 5px !important; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: 20px !important; margin-top: 5px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="180" /></a>2) More importantly, when I think of empowering women <strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I think of Ricky’s mother who I met in Siamazilla, Zambia.</strong> Ricky’s mom has AIDS, and so does his sister. Her husband contracted AIDS and passed it on to them. We sponsor her son through Hope for Children. I met the whole family, and laid hands on her family to pray for hope and healing. I want to empower this woman, and in fact we do, beyond the sponsorship. She is empowered to be on the leadership team in her community because the Wesleyan church in her village created a new organization to meet these needs, and she is on the leadership of that—superseding the male-dominated tribal culture that is in fact often times propagating these kinds of cyclical cultural evils.</div>
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3) When I think of empowering women <strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I think of my daughters who are 9 and 7 years old.</strong> They have many dreams for their lives, and they are far more privileged than Ricky and his sister for sure. However, my daughters are born in to a world where women give birth to 100% of the children and do 66% of the work, but where women only make 10% of the money and only own 1% of the property. Inequities abound. I don’t want the dreams and callings of my own daughters to be limited. And so when I think of empowering women I think of empowering my daughters with the same magnitude and energy that I empower my son (and perhaps even a little more to make up for the head start he’ll get for being male.</div>
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<a href="http://www.daviddrury.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Screen-Shot-2013-03-08-at-2.37.49-PM.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 2.37.49 PM" class="alignright wp-image-2316" height="210" src="http://www.daviddrury.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Screen-Shot-2013-03-08-at-2.37.49-PM-293x300.png" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: right; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 5px !important; margin-left: 20px !important; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 5px !important; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="205" /></a>4) When I think of empowering women <strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I think of Rose, who is the pastor of the church in Siamazilla, Zambia.</strong> Because the church in her community is Wesleyan, she is able to pursue her calling to preach the gospel and lead a church. I was able to hear her speak briefly, and while I didn’t speak her language, I could tell that she spoke to her people with spiritual power, compassion, & authority. When I think of empowering women I think of Pastor Rose</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
5) If you’re wondering how to engage, I encourage connection with <a href="http://www.worldhope.org/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #11b1df; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">World Hope International</a>, as I’ve personally seen them successfully empowering women to escape human trafficking and also working with microeconomic models and empowering their leadership through helping orphans and vulnerable children in Africa, including the above stories. Many other organizations I might mention are good–but the people at WHI are people I trust and know personally, and they have worked in these arenas for a good long time. When I think of empowering women, <strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I think of World Hope.</strong></div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I remember walking two miles with Ricky and his sister back to the Church in Siamazilla where I heard Rose speak and we all ate a great meal together in the village. I remember holding Ricky’s hand on the left and his sisters on the right. And I remember praying that the daughters of Africa, and all daughters everywhere, would have a better future.</div>
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
So, that’s what I think about when I think of empowering women. How about you, what do you think when someone talks about “Empowering Women”?"</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-32478902049676584592013-04-09T07:00:00.000-07:002013-04-09T07:00:04.631-07:00The Power of One Woman is Contagious<a href="http://www.opportunity.org/" target="_blank">Opportunity International</a> applauds The Woman’s Liberty Bell Blog along with the voices of Emily Jones and author Sheryl WuDunn who ‘chime in’ and affirm “the challenge that women & girls face around the world is the moral challenge of our time”. Empowering women in one arena paves the way for equality in every arena. In many regions of the developing world the suffragist movement is just beginning. We stand in solidarity with you as 93% of our micro-entrepreneurs are female – enabling their God-given potential to flourish. The power of One Woman is contagious! Carpe Diem!<br />
<br />
1.5 billion people live in extreme poverty. Many are women entrepreneurs who have plans for a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. With a little support, they can change many lives. That’s the power of One Woman.<br />
<br />
As a Global Ambassador to Opportunity International, Carly Fiorina will lend her voice and influence to Opportunity’s efforts to build a network of women investing in women to end the cycle of poverty. Now under Opportunity’s umbrella, the One Woman Initiative will support women in the developing world through financial resources, education and training to build sustainable futures.<br />
<br />
Watch Opportunity CEO Vicki Escarra and Carly Fiorina chat with CBS Saturday Morning anchor Rebecca Jarvis on the power of one woman to impact so many around her.<br />
<br />
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You can learn more about <a href="http://www.opportunity.org/" target="_blank">Opportunity International</a> by following us on <a href="http://facebook.com/opportunityintl" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/opportunityintl" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or by contacting Linda VanderWeele at <a href="mailto:lvanderheele@opportunity.org">lvanderweele@opportunity.org</a>Opportunity Internationalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17076784869538993448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-18079534758876907592013-04-08T20:25:00.000-07:002013-04-09T05:44:47.020-07:00Anger Management... by Gustavo Karakey<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtHIu6ExiyGf-34gEQ7cbFMw_9RTjc9rVw7NSXCKA6cQHZzUHtrLYejpIN1-caReJM35Ar2NQ41rLOUf9Il2qUze0t73DZ-AXXSERJ0GDFRGDikqCK2hyphenhyphenvCPNGBIbcUttCeUQgk4tW5g/s1600/gustavo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtHIu6ExiyGf-34gEQ7cbFMw_9RTjc9rVw7NSXCKA6cQHZzUHtrLYejpIN1-caReJM35Ar2NQ41rLOUf9Il2qUze0t73DZ-AXXSERJ0GDFRGDikqCK2hyphenhyphenvCPNGBIbcUttCeUQgk4tW5g/s1600/gustavo.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Gustavo is a professor of New Testament at the Biblical Seminary of Colombia, in Medellin, Colombia. He has </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">taught Bible courses in a Bible Institute in Asuncion, Paraguay and masters level Bible Courses for Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in the Dominican Republic and Peru. He has </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">a Masters of Divinity (MDiv) and a Masters in Theology (ThM) with a focus in New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is currently working on his doctorate in New Testament from the London School of Theology. He is a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">Hispanic-American born in Mexico, raised in San Diego, lived in Boston for many years, Paraguay and now Colombia where he lives with his wife and three children. <a href="http://pinterest.com/gkarakey/">http://pinterest.com/gkarakey/</a></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
I am an angry man!<o:p></o:p></div>
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I wasn’t always like this.
When I first came to faith through a Charismatic church, I didn’t even
know that the evangelical world had a gender problem. How could I? Our church
had pastors, teachers and prophets of both genders. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My seminary days brought me face to face with theological
diversity on the gender issue. In actuality,
I discovered during this time that there wasn’t much Christians could agree
upon, but I accepted this diversity on gender as a normal part of Christianity. We should major on the majors, right? <o:p></o:p></div>
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And then a few years back, it all changed for me during a
short CBE conference in Minnesota. The
cumulative impact of hearing the damaging historical, theological and
sociological effects of this issue for women was just too much to bear. That it was being facilitated and perpetuated
by the church I dearly loved, well, I quickly reached a boiling point! The concept of agreeing to disagree, well it just didn't cut it anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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To be honest, I began to look for ways to confront people (mostly men) on
this gender issue. And to my great
dismay, I even found myself having a difficult time respecting or loving people
who held to a view of gender in the church that was anything but fully
egalitarian. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Part of my frustration also stemmed with how non-egalitarian views were actually practiced in the real world. Forget about the ideals! How could we do this to our dear sisters? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even if we conceded that every controversial
passage should be interpreted in a complementarian way, the impact on women of
this view (separate but equal roles) was simply too devastating to ignore. No matter how carefully one tried to practice
it, there were far too many casual, abusive and erring listeners to make this
doctrine anything but a woman’s worst nightmare.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I teach in a major seminary here in Medellín, Colombia. Our students come from different
denominational backgrounds, some of which are egalitarian, some of which
are not. In addition, it hurts me to say because I want to be sensitive to my host country, but the fact remains that a hierarchical and authoritarian style of leadership predominates in many churches in Latin America. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These models appeal more to the examples of Old Testament single-rule leaders such as priests, military leaders, kings and prophets than they do with Jesus' models of the servant, the ancient shepherd and being the least. Thus, it is difficult to get the gender issue right at the personal level when it is so upside down at the ecclesiastical level.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still there is much hope. I have made it my goal
to deal with this issue constructively, respectfully and in a theologically
persuasive way with the students I have the privilege to teach. In my leadership classes we are looking at well known but lesser practiced models of church and leadership such as the body, the servant and the shepherd and working out the implications of mutual submission and service under these contexts. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is what keeps me sane these days regarding gender and
what keeps my temper in check on this most critical of issues facing the church
in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div>
<div id="ftn2">
</div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02962312457144793381noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-12390462393506759562013-04-07T12:07:00.002-07:002013-04-08T08:30:28.395-07:00Enlisting Male Allies: Stepping Up Together to Be the Change by Emily Nielsen Jones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/bajaage/7cb66158a3b70be12c95804e004c19f1/OJO-pe0058202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://previews.agefotostock.com/previewimage/bajaage/7cb66158a3b70be12c95804e004c19f1/OJO-pe0058202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">The purpose of the Women's Liberty Bell Blog is to promote dialogue around how to more fully enlist our faith traditions in the ongoing work of uplifting girls/women around the world, not only in the form of charity/humanitarian efforts, but even more fundamentally to establish a <u>very clear, spiritual framework for women's human equality around the world.</u></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Religion, as we all know, has conflictual forces within it which <i>lean </i>both forward and backwards when it comes to advancing justice and equality for all. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">No where is this tension felt more acutely than in the domain of gender where throughout history and still today we see both empowering/disempowering forces which both encourage women to rise up above patriarchal ideas/norms and also to stay in "their place". </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Like so many today, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">we at the Women's Liberty Bell Blog believe that <i>our world is in a unique moment of time</i> where the sheer shock of how low the floor has dropped for women's human rights around the world has created a holy catalyst not just to engage in humanitarian relief for women but also a <i>deeper change of consciousness </i>of the underlying hierarchical model of gender which has for centuries devalued and disempowered women as the subordinate "lesser than" gender. Key to this deeper transformation is the involvement of men embracing gender equality/justice not just as a "women's issue" but as a common human struggle. Without this, all we will have is these tiring gender battles... </span><a href="http://www.businessconjunctions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Men-women-Copyright-Pauline-Siebers1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.businessconjunctions.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Men-women-Copyright-Pauline-Siebers1.jpg" width="199" /></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGonO8lh5eshh7N9vkhDxjqU5AjYidWR6OgQSbbiy6zrFFWFZ1FP8mfmTKCVCoeV5bDAWfz8T-bIQeR-YU5skHvCKfwsAQDl-NN9wXpp5q1E8hK2N4dp42XRCWOMlDThMUIK9XgzRrrg/s1600/steppingup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGonO8lh5eshh7N9vkhDxjqU5AjYidWR6OgQSbbiy6zrFFWFZ1FP8mfmTKCVCoeV5bDAWfz8T-bIQeR-YU5skHvCKfwsAQDl-NN9wXpp5q1E8hK2N4dp42XRCWOMlDThMUIK9XgzRrrg/s320/steppingup.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">which divide us unnecessarily, make us out to be totally different species rather than brothers and sisters who share the same human DNA, drain our spiritual vitality as both men and women, and militate against all of the humanitarian progress so many are working toward. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">(For more info on this regressive gender movement which is </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">cropping up with renewed vigor within men's ministries and family/parenting resources encouraging men to "reclaim their rightful place" as leaders/patriarchs, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">check out this blog: <a href="http://davidfranklin.net/davids-blog/the-hidden-patriarchy-of-the-mens-movement/">http://davidfranklin.net/davids-blog/the-hidden-patriarchy-of-the-mens-movement/</a></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">All this is to say... we need your partnership to step up together to be fully empowered human beings and to create a better world for our daughters and our sons to thrive as human beings.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQDtoNyhJvNvAEL6yDxvDtnXXfb4mmsNd-xIQIMY7juHGoglBwo3dnio-5zH_PNtyUg-oWmfdS9yyJBx_wTTaHVfbvXy0NTs08diNAh03HIHYEcbkljmsxNuhihhOtrENl7FHZtK6sbw/s1600/manwomanladder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQDtoNyhJvNvAEL6yDxvDtnXXfb4mmsNd-xIQIMY7juHGoglBwo3dnio-5zH_PNtyUg-oWmfdS9yyJBx_wTTaHVfbvXy0NTs08diNAh03HIHYEcbkljmsxNuhihhOtrENl7FHZtK6sbw/s320/manwomanladder.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="212" /></a></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14pt;">Men, please chime in this April! </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #491ebb; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">Enlisting Male Allies: Stepping Up Together to Be the Change... </span></span></i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #491ebb; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Empowering
women is only half of the equation of gender justice/equality. Men too need to
be part of the change of gender balancing our world. For you personally as a
male, what shifts have occurred in your gender/faith journey that have enabled
you to <u>lean in</u> to gender equality? How has this enhanced and enlarged your own development as a human being? Where do you see both
obstacles & opportunities to more fully enlisting men as partners in
getting faith more fully onboard with gender justice?</span></span></i></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #491ebb; font-family: Georgia; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></i></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just a short sweet post will do, something from the heart and from your own life experience. We really <i>really</i> REALLY need your voices & your solidarity! </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #44002f; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Let's work together to be the change we want to see in the world,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>together. </i>Let us know if you would like to chime in!</span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-92195053289397169232013-04-05T06:43:00.000-07:002013-04-06T07:36:11.496-07:00The Next Malalas: an interview w/ amazing young women stirring up the religious pot in Pakistan @Women in the World<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/04/the-next-malalas.html">http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/04/the-next-malalas.html</a><br />
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Women and girls word wide are stepping up as powerful agents for change. As people of faith who lean forward toward full gender equality, we need to be aware of and dialogue with the forces within our own religious traditions which are leaning backwards, making it harder for women world wide to be seen and treated as equal human beings with full agency.<br />
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Listen to this remarkable young woman in Pakistan making the case to these male village leaders that they should allow girls to attend school. Listen to how determined they are to preserve male power and limit the independence of girls. Although most in my tradition (Christianity) are not advocating excluding girls from schooling, do we not have our own voices which seem bent on preserving the idea of male power? <br />
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What is ours to do to keep our faith traditions leaning forward for girls and women's full human equality and agency? <br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Next Malalas</span></div>
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BY <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/contributors/janine-di-giovanni.html" style="cursor: pointer; overflow: auto; text-decoration: none;">JANINE DI GIOVANNI</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Undaunted by the attack on 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, two extraordinary young women are working to change the hearts and minds of Pakistan. By Janine di Giovanni.</span></div>
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<span class="share" style="border: 0px; float: left; font: inherit; margin: 0px 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/04/the-next-malalas.html#comments" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline !important; overflow: auto; text-decoration: none;">Women like Malala Yousafzai “can only be stopped with a bullet.”</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So said Khalida Brohi, the 24-year-old founder and director of the Sughar Women Program, which is dedicated to ending tribal violence against women in Pakistan. Brohi was one of two women introduced in an extraordinary session at the Women in the World Summit called “The Next Generation of Malalas.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In Pakistan, the right to go to school is not a given. In the more rural areas, a girl is born, married off as early as 9 years old, and basically lives life under the control of men. The brutal attack on 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for her education activism, is one that every Pakistani woman knows well. But being shot, in the words of Angelina Jolie, only "made her stronger."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Here is a link of Humaira in her work with village chiefs: <a href="http://www.sulaimaniyah.org/index.php/component/content/article/10-news-details/30-ho-yaqeen">http://www.sulaimaniyah.org/index.php/component/content/article/10-news-details/30-ho-yaqeen</a> </span><br />
humaira Bachal, founder and president of the Dream Foundation Trust, works in her village to start schools. The dream of a school is taken for granted by so many. But women like her and Brohi—the new Malalas—are fighting so that all girls have the right to an education, and that what happened to Malala will never happen again.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Filmmaker Sharmeen OBaid Chinoy uses her camera to expose the plight of Pakistani women. Asked by moderator Christiane Amanpour whether she is able to make her powerful films because she is a woman, she responded, “The very reason I am alive is that there is a certain level of respect people have because I am a woman. When they see a woman who looks them in the eye, sometimes they don't know how to look at me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Who are the new Malalas? They are the women in Pakistan who are launching initiatives on the grassroots level to change a sexist mindset deeply entrenched in Pakistani society. They are brave, because they are fighting against men who believe that women who are educated become too independent. Their independence is a threat.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Khalida’s father warned her that doing this work would kill her. She responded, “Doing this work will keep me alive."</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-15079619757826235932013-04-05T03:42:00.000-07:002013-04-07T04:30:13.096-07:00The Power of One Woman is Contagious<a href="http://www.opportunity.org/" target="_blank">Opportunity International</a> applauds The Woman’s Liberty Bell Blog along with the voices of Emily Jones and author Sheryl WuDunn who ‘chime in’ and affirm “the challenge that women & girls face around the world is the moral challenge of our time”. Empowering women in one arena paves the way for equality in every arena. In many regions of the developing world the suffragist movement is just beginning. We stand in solidarity with you as 93% of our micro-entrepreneurs are female – enabling their God-given potential to flourish. The power of One Woman is contagious! Carpe Diem!<br />
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1.5 billion people live in extreme poverty. Many are women entrepreneurs who have plans for a better future for themselves, their families and their communities. With a little support, they can change many lives. That’s the power of One Woman.<br />
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As a Global Ambassador to Opportunity International, Carly Fiorina will lend her voice and influence to Opportunity’s efforts to build a network of women investing in women to end the cycle of poverty. Now under Opportunity’s umbrella, the One Woman Initiative will support women in the developing world through financial resources, education and training to build sustainable futures.<br />
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Watch Opportunity CEO Vicki Escarra and Carly Fiorina chat with CBS Saturday Morning anchor Rebecca Jarvis on the power of one woman to impact so many around her.<br />
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<embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" background="#333333" flashvars="si=254&&contentValue=50141179&shareUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141179n" height="279" salign="lt" scale="noscale" src="http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425"></embed><br />
You can learn more about <a href="http://www.opportunity.org/" target="_blank">Opportunity International</a> by following us on <a href="http://facebook.com/opportunityintl" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/opportunityintl" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or by contacting Linda VanderWeele at <a href="mailto:lvanderheele@opportunity.org">lvanderheele@opportunity.org</a>Ian Haisleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17335323172255132403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-5101442898685005832013-04-04T19:59:00.003-07:002013-04-05T03:40:59.716-07:00Lean On: When "Leaning in" Isn't Enough by Tina Brown @Women in the World<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/04/lean-on-when-leaning-in-isn-t-enough.html"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/04/lean-on-when-leaning-in-isn-t-enough.html</span></a><br />
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<ul class="tags list-inline calltoarms clearfix " style="border: 0px; font: inherit; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am fortunate to have been given a ticket to participate in the 4th Annual Women of the World Summit (<a href="http://www.womenintheworld.org/page/event/detail/conference/wh7">http://www.womenintheworld.org/page/event/detail/conference/wh7</a>) which was kicked off brilliantly by Tina Brown Editor in Chief of Newsweek with the inspiring words that what we are all here doing is not just "leaning in" (which we need to do) but also "leaning on" cultural practices which continue to try to put women in "their place" and restrict their independence and human development. From here, we have begun to hear from women around the world who are struggling not only to raise the ceiling for women's advancement but also to lift the floor of basic human rights which have fallen dangerously low around the world. </span></ul>
<ul class="tags list-inline calltoarms clearfix " style="border: 0px; font: inherit; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The externals differ, but all the stories speak to the same basic reality of unspeakable injustices resulting from deeply entrenched ideas about male power which seek to control girls/women's independence: whether it be keeping girls out of school so they are only useful for marriage, genital mutilation to mark the woman as belonging to a man, early marriage, and generally speaking a model of marriage which puts women in a submissive role. Being here gives me the sense that God does seem to call particular people with particular moral clarity and sass to "lean on" these powerful mindsets and challenge their underlying assumptions of male presumption to power in all its forms, whether it is young girls like Malala in Pakistan going around to speak to the village leaders about why they should let their girls be educated or an irish woman activist who spent her life as an activist working on behalf of invisible poor domestic workers in ireland who found their wages continually cut and their rights eroded... or any of us asking questions, stirring up the holy pot when we see any forms of diminishment of women's agency within a religious setting we are in. </span></ul>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Listen to Tina and ask yourself what is yours to "lean on" for the sake of creating a more gender balanced world... Emily Nielsen Jones</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Join us on the livestream of the Women in the World Summit and meet all the extraordinary women, many celebrated, but just as many you will never have heard of until now, leaning ON.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We’ve heard a lot in recent polemic about how to win the fight for the corner office. But pushing up against a glass ceiling is practically a luxury when you consider the millions of women who can feel the floor dropping beneath their feet.<br /><br />At the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw.html" style="cursor: pointer; overflow: auto;">Women in the World Summit</a>, currently in progress at Lincoln Center, extraordinarily courageous women bring their stories from 16 countries about what it means to struggle against cultural repression, economic exclusion, and systemic violence.<br /><br />They remind us what it feels like to be a woman in Pakistan, where girls are gunned down for the simple act of boarding a school bus.<br /><br />To be a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it's estimated over 1,000 women are raped every day.<br /><br />To be a woman in Brazil, where a report in 2010 found that 10 Brazilian women lose their lives to domestic violence <i style="border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">every day.</i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To be a woman in Somalia, where 95 percent of girls face genital mutilation.<br /><br />To be a woman in Indonesia, where every hour one woman dies in childbirth.<br /><br />To be a woman in Afghanistan, where nearly 90 percent are condemned to illiteracy.<br /><br />And here in the United States, let’s remember that women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. An enormous number of mothers in the U.S. are working double time, graveyard shifts, and more than one job just to put food on the table for their kids. Just last week, we saw the most restrictive anti-abortion bill in the country signed into law in North Dakota. It’s incredible, isn’t it, that tens of thousands of rape kits sit untested in police storage facilities across the country because the authorities—our authorities—just don’t get around to it.<br /><br />In recent weeks, in public debate, we’ve been exhorted to “lean in.” There can hardly be a woman in America who hasn't followed that important conversation. And thank you, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/01/the-absurd-backlash-against-sheryl-sandberg-s-lean-in.html" style="cursor: pointer; overflow: auto;">Sheryl Sandberg</a>, for starting it.<br /><br />But “leaning in” can only be a partial strategy. Leaning in works only in places where women are close enough to reach for their rightful goals. <br /><br />But there are vast numbers of places where women are at the wrong end of a chasm. Where you lean in and you're scorned, or worse, flogged, stoned, vilified, or denied entry.<br /><br />Our mission at the fourth Women in the World Summit is not just to lean in, but to lean ON.<br /><br />Lean on corporations to change the pitiful representation of women in boardrooms.<br /><br />Lean on the prosecutors of India to end rampant sexual violence.<br /><br />Lean on the courts in Latin America to put an end to impunity for violence against women.<br /><br />Lean on the pimps who sell girls for sex and the johns who buy them.<br /><br />Lean on clerics from all religions who condone or turn a blind eye to the abuse of women and deny their fundamental rights.<br /><br />Lean on brothers who would murder their sisters in so-called honor killings!<br /><br />Lean on entire governments to safeguard the rights and well-being, and to free up the economic potential, of a full half of all their citizens!</span></div>
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<figcaption class="photocredit" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(214, 214, 214); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tina Brown, Editor in Chief, Newsweek & The Daily Beast at the Women in the World Conference 2013.( Roxxe Ireland/Marc Bryan-Brown )</span></figcaption></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-14855180040720130282013-03-31T17:12:00.002-07:002013-03-31T17:12:31.352-07:00An Easter Prayer for the Rising Up of the Girl Child by Julie & Emily Nielsen<h5 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1,"tn":"K"}" style="color: black; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}" style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.38;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i>An Easter Prayer for the Girl Child</i></span></span></h5>
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<a href="http://s1.favim.com/orig/19/butterfly-girl-pretty-Favim.com-200309.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://s1.favim.com/orig/19/butterfly-girl-pretty-Favim.com-200309.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}" style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.38;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.38;">May girls everywhere have the opportunity and tools to live a full and healthy life... </span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">In the spirit of Easter, may the Girl Child continue to rise up around the world from anything that diminishes Her, body, mind & spirit...</span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">As Christians, let us commit to <i>fully </i>enlist the <i>full </i>resurrection power of the Gospel to support the rising up of the Girl Child around the world...</span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">As we follow Christ beyond Easter, let us be in the habit of continually dying to and letting go of anything </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">that makes Her vulnerable to forces which seek to harm, diminish, and thwart her resurrection power... </span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Let us celebrate Her amazing flight... </span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Let us stand in awe of Her vulnerable, yet unthwart-able power and see in her rising up the resurrection power of Christ in our world... </span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">In the name of Christ, may She stretch her wings and fly and grace our world with the healing in her wings. Amen</span></h5>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;">the butterfly is a sacred symbol from nature which captures the easter spirit... </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;">An inspiring article about how the rising up of the Girl Child is leading our world...</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #430000; font-family: proxima_nova_regularregular, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 20px;">“Girl power is one of global development’s most potent weapons against poverty.” </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #58595b; font-family: proxima_nova_regularregular, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://skollworldforum.org/2013/03/28/global-change-starts-with-girls/">http://skollworldforum.org/2013/03/28/global-change-starts-with-girls/</a></span><br />
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GLOBAL CHANGE STARTS WITH GIRLS</h1>
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<a data-swap=".person-info" href="http://skollworldforum.org/2013/03/28/global-change-starts-with-girls/#" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://swf2.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/themes/skoll-world-forum-v2/images/arrow-seven.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 2px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: grey; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 12px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">KATHY CALVIN</a> <br style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />President and CEO, United Nations Foundation</div>
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<em style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Published in Partnership with <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/skollworldforum" style="color: #80171a; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Forbes</a></em></div>
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ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:</h4>
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<li style="color: #58595b; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A healthy, educated, empowered adolescent girl has the unique potential to break the cycle of poverty.</li>
<li style="color: #58595b; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">While girls have the potential to change the world, in many places they often don’t have the chance.</li>
<li style="color: #58595b; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">We can help end poverty by vastly ramping up our efforts to protect and empower adolescent girls.</li>
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We are just wrapping up Women’s History Month, which has generated a much-needed dialogue on the contributions of women to society, but an important piece of the conversation has been missing – the contributions of adolescent girls around the world.</div>
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Girl power is one of global development’s most potent weapons against poverty.</div>
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A healthy, educated, empowered adolescent girl has the unique potential to break the cycle of poverty. She is likely to have fewer and healthier children and earn higher wages to support her family and drive economic growth. All of this promotes more productive and stable communities and countries – enhancing global prosperity and security and benefiting us all.</div>
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But here’s the challenge: while girls have the potential to change the world, in many places they often don’t have the chance.</div>
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Millions of adolescent girls are forced to marry young, drop out of school, and carry the burden of household chores – depriving them of educational and economic opportunities. They are at risk of physical and sexual abuse. And they are often denied the right and tools to plan their families. An adolescent girl doesn’t always get to decide if and when she becomes pregnant – but a girl under 15 is <i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">five times</i> more likely to die from pregnancy and childbirth complications than a woman in her 20s.</div>
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Once condemned to the shadows, these injustices are starting to get the attention they deserve. A growing movement – including the <a href="http://www.unfoundation.org/" style="color: #80171a; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">UN Foundation</a> and its <a href="http://www.girlup.org/" style="color: #80171a; cursor: pointer; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Girl Up campaign</a>, the Nike Foundation, UN agencies, and others – has demanded a place for girls on the global agenda. Girls themselves have started demanding a seat at the table too.</div>
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The result: the start of a global revolution to recognize the rights of girls and to realize their promise.</div>
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The UN’s Millennium Development Goals established in 2000 provided a number of concrete goals for the international community to mobilize around, and we have made real progress in the last 15 years. This includes virtual parity between boys and girls in primary education and significant drops in child and maternal mortality.</div>
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“Girl power is one of global development’s most potent weapons against poverty.”</div>
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Policies are also beginning to catch up. In December, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved a resolution on ending female genital mutilation, and in March, the Commission on the Status of Women ended its annual session by adopting strongly agreed conclusions to prevent and end violence against girls and women.</div>
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Additionally, as part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to girls, President Obama recently signed into law the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which includes new provisions to make ending child marriage in developing countries an official foreign policy priority of the U.S. government.</div>
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All of this is evidence that the international community can achieve meaningful progress when we come together. So what still needs to be done to make sure girls everywhere are empowered?</div>
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First, we need better data about girls and whether and how development programs reach them.</div>
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Second, we need to take programs that work to scale and increase investments in girls.</div>
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Third, we have to overturn<b style="font-family: proxima_nova_boldbold, proxima_nova_regularregular, arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: normal !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> </b>laws and policies that discriminate against girls and pass – and enforce – ones that protect their rights.</div>
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Next, we need to increase educational and economic opportunities for adolescent girls, especially in technology.</div>
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Another critical step we must take is ending child marriage. This effort must be coupled with a strong push to expand access to voluntary family planning information and services for girls. Ninety percent of first births for girls under 18 happen within marriage. As Maria Eitel of the Nike Foundation said last year, “This isn’t an issue of promiscuity. … If she’s married, she needs access to family planning.”</div>
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The fact is: all adolescent girls have the right to quality reproductive health information and care. This shouldn’t be treated as a controversial issue; it should be treated as a human rights issue.</div>
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The world is at a crossroads and what we do, or fail to do, has enormous consequences. The international community can stick with the status quo, which deprives millions of girls of their rights, and harms global health, economic growth, and the environment – or we can help end poverty by vastly ramping up our efforts to protect and empower adolescent girls. Right now, discussions are underway about what comes after the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. We must seize this opportunity to explicitly prioritize girls in the post-2015 framework.</div>
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If we want to drive progress in the world, we need to put girls in the driver’s seat. We know how to make that happen, but we need the collective will to do it. Each of us can speak up, raise awareness, support organizations, or do something to make girls’ causes our cause. And together with girls around the world, we can create a brighter future for all of us.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-61079136508967475852013-03-26T08:11:00.001-07:002013-03-27T12:40:53.057-07:00The Cost of 'Perverted' Preaching by Lynne Hybels<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://www.lynnehybels.com/" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Lynne Hybels </a><span style="text-align: left;">is a peace activist/advocate for global engagement at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. She is the author of </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nice-Girls-Dont-Change-World/dp/0310272319" style="border: none; cursor: pointer; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nice Girls Don’t Change the World</a><span style="text-align: left;"> and helped produce Hope and Action, a DVD and participant guide that introduces churches and small groups to first steps in addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Lynne and her husband, Bill, have two adult children and two grandchildren.</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://sojo.net/magazine/2013/04/cost-perverted-preaching" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">http://sojo.net/magazine/2013/04/cost-perverted-preaching</a><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">THE DEATH OF a college student who had been gang-raped in Delhi provoked outrage and anger. More than 2 million Indian students joined a movement to protest the rising violence against women in India. According to official data, reported cases of rape have more than doubled in the past 20 years, and women are the victims of a high proportion of other violent crimes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Congolese surgeon and activist Monique Kapamba Yangoy (courtesy of Christine Anderson)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But there's another side to this story. "Almost as shocking as the Delhi gang rape has been the range of voices that have sounded after it," wrote Sagarika Ghose, a TV journalist and commentator. "Patriarchy is chillingly omnipresent." Rather than blaming those who attack women, leaders in some Indian villages blame Westernization, liberal consumerism, growing individualism, or even the women themselves—because they wear "skimpy clothes," talk on mobile phones, and work outside the home, according to South Africa's <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mail & Guardian</i> newspaper.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For 19-year-old Kanika Sharma, these leaders miss the point. "It is all about the mentality of the boys," Sharma told the<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> Mail & Guardian.</i> "They think because they are men, they can do anything. But girls should get equal rights and opportunities." </span>Sharma speaks while standing under a sign that says:<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Being a woman should not make you feel vulnerable.</i> But sadly, throughout the world women do feel vulnerable.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Before I traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—described as the "rape capital" of the world—I studied reports on rape as a weapon of war. In the DRC rebel soldiers have brutally raped thousands of women. They know that if they rape enough women and girls, they can destroy the social fabric of an entire community.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But in the DRC I discovered something worse than rape as a weapon of war. I discovered an underlying culture of rape in which violating women sexually has become normalized, accepted. In this extremely patriarchal society, boys are taught that being a man means dominating women. Rapists are congratulated on being "man enough" to "take a woman."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Congolese surgeon Monique Kapamba Yangoy explained that the DRC has laws prohibiting men from having sex with girls under 18, but they're not enforced. It is not uncommon for girls as young as fifth grade to ensure "success" in school by having sex with their teachers. University students who demand that their professors wear condoms when they have sex with them tend to get lower grades than girls who don't demand condoms. Women are often asked to have sex with potential employers before they can get a job.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Perhaps the deepest problem, suggests Dr. Yangoy, is that women in such cultures are conditioned to believe they truly are of little value. So they lose the will to fight back, to stand up for themselves, to expect just and loving treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the DRC, as in many countries, churches have often reinforced this perspective by preaching a perverted message of female submission. Women are to submit, period. No one mentions that men are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church—even to the point of giving his life for his beloved. No one mentions the concept of mutual submission.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But in the DRC that is beginning to change. One reason I work with World Relief Congo is that it actively works toward the slow but sustainable transformation of cultural attitudes toward gender and sex. I sat with Congolese church leaders as Dr. Yangoy challenged them as a woman, a doctor, and a Christian to use their positions of power to protect and empower women and girls.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Recently, at a gathering of women leaders from around the world, I joined women from many faiths in denouncing the actions of those who wrongly use our sacred texts and belief systems to degrade women. Together we agreed to give our voices, our money, and our time to the people, organizations, and cultural movements that honor rather than degrade women. Please join me—for the sake of every woman in India, in the DRC, and in your community and mine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Lynne Hybels,</b> co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, is author of</em> Nice Girls Don't Change the World.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-989256863152316644.post-80541604528855844162013-03-20T15:41:00.003-07:002013-03-22T06:13:04.908-07:00Confronting tensions, real & imagined, & realizing potentials. By Katherine Marshall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Katherine Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where she leads the Center's program on Religion and Global Development. After a long career in the development field, including several leadership positions at the World Bank, Marshall moved to Georgetown in 2006, where she also serves as a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Service. She helped to create and now serves as the Executive Director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/katherine-marshall"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/people/katherine-marshall</span></a><br />
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Over my lifetime (certainly not just my career) the causes
of social justice and our responsibilities to act to serve them have taken on
growing importance for me. More and more, I see relationships between women and
men as vital. Now a visiting professor at Georgetown University and leader of
the World Faiths Development Dialogue, a tiny but dynamic NGO, the bulk of my
working life was spent at the World Bank, always in front line operations centered
on on Africa, Latin America, and East Asia and pushing boundaries for women as
a leader. For over a decade my focus has been faith and development: what does
religion have to do with the challenges and what does that mean for
action? At this intersection no issue is
as important as relationships between women and men.</div>
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Let me begin with an odd parallel. I hope that it will begin
a conversation that we can continue.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My international development career began at a time when
relationships between women and men were pretty clearly defined: the World Bank
I first encountered in 1968 employed men and women but the men were at the top,
the women secretaries or poorly paid research assistants. It was a man’s world.
The times were changing. An international organization like the World Bank
buffeted laggeda bit behind but nonetheless was changing also, so a young
idealist like me found a somewhat uneasy welcome. There were rules that now
seem hilarious on skirt length, and far more important doubts as to whether a
woman could travel to far off places or be trusted to speak to a senior
government official.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Feisty people, almost all women, challenged these patterns
and gradually change came. A few women like me broke through break glass
ceilings. The willful ignoring of the complex roles that women played in social
change gave way to rather timid exploration.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In those early discussions the tone of discussions about
women’s issues was qualitatively different from those on other development
topics (say livestock strategies, railway car procurement). Voice tones
changed. Men shied away from discussions unless someone very senior compelled
them to participate. Over time we saw dramatic change and today no
self-respecting development specialist would gainsay the assumption that
women’s roles must be examined and that gender equality is a sine qua non for a
just and successful society. Whether they act sincerely and effectively on
these assumptions is a topic for another day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Around 1999 a new topic entered World Bank discussions:
religion and faith. As the World Bank’s president, James D. Wolfensohn,
presented the case, it seemed obvious: most people in the world are motivated
by religion and religious institutions have an ancient history on virtually any
development topic. But the worlds were far apart, as far apart and alien as
women and development seemed in the early explorations. It was a rocky start,
still painful and rarely given priority. Slowly, very slowly, the worlds are
finding ways to move ahead. But it’s an astonishingly difficult journey.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The odd parallel is that both topics, gender and
development, evoke strong emotional reactions that often derail honest,
productive discussion and analysis. It’s important to explore why. And, if my
hypothesis is correct, the reasons relate not only to the nature of the very
topics, gender and religion, taken separately, but to the ways in which they
are related. <o:p></o:p></div>
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People care deeply about relationships between women and
men. It affects everyone, in their lives each day, from the moment they wake up
until they fall asleep. It’s about how they live, how their family functions,
who they love and how, who they fight with, what they honor, and what they
disdain. Most people come to these relationships with inherited assumptions and
rules and these often have roots, complex but deep, in their religious beliefs
and training. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Equality and equity between men and women (not the same
thing but a topic for another day) is no simple matter. It is truly revolutionary.
To my mind nothing is more powerful than an equal partnership of love and
respect but for many a more traditional ordering or relationships is a
desirable norm, even if that’s not admitted. Such debates are rarely joined but
they are critical to the concerns of this Liberty Bell conversation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My own conclusion is that no topic is as important, both for
development and for religion, as relations between women and men. It’s about
daily life (food and laundry) but also about the most fundamental core of life
philosophies. What do love, respect, freedom, and justice mean, as lived in
every day life as well as for societies? Love thy neighbor as thyself: what
does that mean within a family? A community? If a girl is blocked in her
dreams, told she can only follow certain paths, must obey and not lead, what
does that mean for human freedom and the right to dignity, even to life?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Equality is not easy. It means huge change that touches
every aspect of life. It’s perhaps the only thing that affects everyone, every
human being. We need to recognize this and talk about the real challenges that
are involved because they demand honesty and a willingness to confront
sensitive topics and nagging worries. We need the probing insights of all
disciplines, theology included but also economics, psychology, and engineering.
The conversation about women and religious traditions, for example patriarchal
traditions, teachings about families, about caring, sexuality, joy, cultural
similarities and differences, all need more focus.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Topping the lists of topics to tackle for me are the horrors
of domestic violence, investing in young children, and hearing women’s voices
loud and clear in every setting, from peace negotiations to divorce law. But
that’s only a start. Every issue we face has a dimension of faith and religion.
And every topic has a gender dimension. As we explore the intersections we can
move far ahead with fresh insights and wisdom. If we bury the issues or fall
for simplistic or rhetorical formulas we may find ourselves stuck in a bog.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To be continued.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Katherine Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04547957973898239407noreply@blogger.com1