Category Reformation21

r21_arthead

Is Patriarchy the Best Term?

I am grateful for Rick Phillips’s latest post on feminism.  There are errors on both sides of a biblical view of godly male leadership in the home and in the church.  Authoritarian, domineering men who stifle the gifts of women…

r21_arthead

Servants and Slaves

Many thanks to Rick Phillips for his helpful comments on slavery, servitude, and manstealing.  The topic seems especially appropriate in 2007, which is the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire.  In support of what Rick has already…

r21_arthead

Reverse Adoption

You can’t choose your family . . . or can you? Last week ABC News reported that 40-year old Jenna MacFarlane has adopted new parents.  Feeling estranged from her own family, MacFarlane took out a personal ad that began “Single…

r21_arthead

The Sin of Manstealing

It is always nice to receive constructive comments and questions from readers of ref21.  A question I received with reference to the sin of slavery (from my reply to Susan Wise Bauer) reads as follows: “Could someone kindly show me how this…

r21_arthead

Understandably Feminist

Thanks, Phil, for your helpful comments regarding feminism.  In light of this, I would like to say that I am sympathetic to the reasons why women are drawn in a feminist direction.  While I do not believe that patriarchy (biblically…

r21_arthead

Mainline Decline, Part 5

From Dave Shiflett, Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity (New York: Sentinel, 2005). Shiflett wonders what accounts for the diverging growth rates of liberal (on the decline) and conservative (on the rise) churches in America.  He…

r21_arthead

Familiarly Feminist

I see that Rick Phillips has already written a full-length response to Susan Wise Bauer’s Books & Culture review of Finally Feminist, a new book by John Stackhouse.  I have not read the Stackhouse book, but based on the summary in…