My friend Dan Brennan has written provocative and paradigm-shifting book on healthy, intimate female-male friendships in the Body of Christ. It’s kinda controversial; he actually thinks, contra to When Harry Met Sally, that men and women, single and married, can enjoy deep, abiding friendships that not only don’t hinder marriages (for any parties that happen to be married), but they actually help marriage. And further, that cross-gender-friendships are a core part of redemption and God’s New Covenant. And that Jesus wants us to have friends of the opposite sex. His wife agrees. (He’s blogged through a lot of the material here; I highly recommend going through his cross-gender friendship archives and giving ’em a read)
So Dan just got picked up by agent extraordinaire Chip MacGregor, and they’ll be shopping this manuscript around to the right publishers.
Today on his blog Dan asks the question, “Is this book too edgy for even emerging church crowds?”
Our fears of sexuality may not fall into neat categories of emerging or something else. Is it a story of risk? You betcha. Does it involve compelling mystery? Yeah, no formulas or six easy steps. Does it bring up strong emotional reactions? Sure it does. Is it a way of love and healing? Well, yes it is. Love and healing. That’s pretty edgy anytime.
So a new configuration of Calvinist communicators has once again emerged, this one called The Gospel Coalition. As I looked at the sea of the half-dozen or so bigwig figureheads, I couldn’t help but think of all the other high-profile groups out there – Ligonier, Together For the Gospel, New Attitude, Desiring God, 9Marks etc etc etc, and how they’re all male and they’re virtually all white. So, through no fault of GC in particular, I wrote them a Comment today. I guess since I’m re-posting it here, this makes it an ‘open letter’ of sorts. Please know that I don’t think this is a uniquely Reformed malady, and this isn’t a swipe at their overall theology per se. (Though it is a swipe at their gendered practices – when it comes to women having full voice in the church I’m an egalitarian, as is fairly well-known) It’s just a plea for these folks to put more of their leading ladies up-front, in ways that are in accordance with their own theopraxis. I hope this starts some fruitful (and playful-yet-respectful) conversation.
Oh by the way, here’s GC spokes(ahem)man John Piper has to say to women in one of their officially-produced videos. It’s entitled What messsage do you have for women in the church?
Okay, and here’s my ‘open comment’ –
I know I’m picking on you, in particular, when I could be picking on scores of similar ministries – so my apologies in advance. But could you PLEASE have some women as figureheads and teachers on some of these?
I KNOW you all are into CBMW, and don’t think women should teach men. But this is the Internet – and there are lots of women on the Internet. So even within your theology/praxis, you should have some by-women, for-women teaching available, yes? I mean, you say women can teach women, right? So please – prove it!
Of course, I realize you might have some fear that a *man* might watch some of these videos, and inadvertently put themselves under a woman’s authority…but this should be the man’s sin to worry about and not yours or the teachers, right?
I apologize too for some of the snark…I really am being mostly serious here…it’s just hard for me to take much that groups like yours say with the exclusive white-male figurehead thing going on…
Thank you for listening.
Sincerely,
Mike Morrell
If they reply, I’ll post that here as well.
Update: Wow – I’ve never received so much feedback so quickly after posting. Keep your reflections coming! Of course, I have the feeling we’ll have someone(s) raining on our egalitarian parade soon; just probabilities. And that’s perfectly fine – let’s just keep it gracious.
And it’s also worth saying that I didn’t start this post to debate egalitarian vs. ‘complimentarian’ per se – though it’s something I feel very strongly about and one of the (very) few issues that make practical fellowship impossible for me – that is, being in a church gathering where women are effectively silenced. (Of course, it’s much easier to detect such a policy in my native habitat of house churches – in most more institutional churches, virtually everyone is silenced, irrespective of gender!) BUT, what I’m asking The Gospel Coalition is not to revisit their theology and men and women’s participation in spirituality/church/life (which they will not do anytime soon), but to consider featuring women in a more prominent role as teachers within their own parameters – that is, teaching fellow women, and (I guess) children – and making these resources as available online as the white menfolk. If you agree with me – be you a white male Reformed complimentarian or a hippie-dippie emergent transgender egalitarian – would you please tell them so too?
My friend Dan Brennan has written provocative and paradigm-shifting book on healthy, intimate female-male friendships in the Body of Christ. It’s kinda controversial; he actually thinks, contra to When Harry Met Sally, that men and women, single and married, can enjoy deep, abiding friendships that not only don’t hinder marriages (for any parties that happen to be married), but they actually help marriage. And further, that cross-gender-friendships are a core part of redemption and God’s New Covenant. And that Jesus wants us to have friends of the opposite sex. His wife agrees. (He’s blogged through a lot of the material here; I highly recommend going through his cross-gender friendship archives and giving ’em a read)
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