Day: December 23, 2008

At Rick Warren’s Church, Women Must Be Submissive But, Despite Biblical Admonition, Are Allowed to Speak

Jon Ponder

Much has been made about the homophobic rantings of Rick Warren, the right-wing bigot Barack Obama has invited to give the invocation at his inauguration, but there has been less discussion about Warren’s beliefs about the role of women in society:

“You wives must willingly obey your husbands in everything, just as the Church obeys Christ.”
— Excerpt from Corinthians on Rick Warren’s website

As Katha Pollitt points out in a Los Angeles Times op-ed:

At [Warren’s] Saddleback Church, wifely submission is official doctrine: The church website tells women to defer to their husband’s “leadership” even when he’s wrong on important issues, such as finances. Never mind if she’s an accountant and he flunked long division, or if she wants to beef up the kids’ college fund and he wants to buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. The godly answer is supposed to be “yes, dear.” Is elevating this male chauvinist how President-elect Obama thanks women, who gave him more than half his votes?

The Saddleback Church website quotes Ephesians 5:22-23, one of the letters supposedly written by apostle Paul about 30 years after the death of Jesus:

You wives must submit to your husbands’ leadership in the same way you submit to the Lord. For a husband is in charge of his wife in the same way Christ is in charge of His body the Church. (He gave His very life to take care of it and be its Savior!) So you wives must willingly obey your husbands in everything, just as the Church obeys Christ.

But using Scripture as a basis for policies in these modern times — be it at a megachurch or in civil law — is fraught with rhetorical danger, which is why today’s Christians selectively ignore some of the Bible’s inflammatory admonitions.

For example, Saddleback Church has apparently chosen to ignore biblical injunctions that women must not speak in church. In a letter to the Christians at Corinth (Corinthians 14:34), Paul wrote:

[…]

Inaugural Slate Includes Pro-Gay Rights Minister

Trish

The full program for the inauguration of Barack Obama and Joe Biden has something for almost everyone. I say “almost” because I’m not seeing any Islamic participation. Maybe it’s just too touchy for someone who spent most of his campaign denying rumors he was a secret Muslim to throw in a monologue from Dave Chappelle.

But the program does include one name that’s been overshadowed by the heavier-weight (and I mean literally — Rick, can we talk? You gotta lay off the cheeseburgers, big guy) pastor of Saddleback Church. Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will give the benediction.

Lowery: “When you talk about the law discriminating, granting a privilege here and denying it there, that’s a civil rights issue. And I can’t take that away from anybody.”

Rev. Lowery is sort of an anti-Warren, actually…Lowery, by contrast, has courageously supported gay marriage. In 2004, Rev. Lowery told ABC News he supported same sex marriage. “When you talk about the law discriminating, the law granting a privilege here, and a right here and denying it there, that’s a civil rights issue. And I can’t take that away from anybody.”

Rev. Lowery is a United Methodist and has joined the struggle in that denomination for equal rights for gay Methodists to be ordained. In 2000, Lowery gave an extraordinary speech where he called for full inclusion in the body of Christ for all Methodists, gay or straight, saying he preferred to err “on the side of inclusion.”

Those with more in-church experience than me will have to let me know how a benediction compares with an invocation. The full line-up, as announced last week, follows.

[…]

Quote du Jour

Jon Ponder

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters — feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community — by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

— Katha Pollitt (b. 1949), in a Los Angeles Times column on Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren, a prominent homophobe and misogynist, to give the invocation at Obama’s inauguration