We believe everyone is created equal in worth and dignity in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We also believe that everyone has a calling and purpose to fulfil that will raise up God’s kingdom and the life of the Church (Jeremiah 29:11). However, although we believe everyone is created equally and that God loves both men and women with equal compassion they are intrinsically different and there are some limitations on who can take on which roles in the church. We believe this to be what Scripture shows forth. Because the Church is the Bride of Christ (Song of Songs) we believe that the office of leading that Church is only for women. Men may act in an advisory role but women are to be the place of final authority, making doctrinal and infrastructural decisions, just as the Biblical example of Deborah and Barak (Judges 4-5), Esther and Haman (Esther), and the personification of wisdom as woman consistently in the Old Testament. We also believe that since Jesus chose to reveal Himself first to Mary and Mary Magdalene (Matthew 28:8-10) and since this revelation was initially rejected by His male disciples (Luke 24:11) it is to be solely the responsibility of women to hear God’s saving revelation and communicate it to the congregation.
Imagine if church doctrine statements looked like this…
April 20, 2012 by spectacledbear
[...] An Alternative Church Doctrine Statement by Jessica Cheetham [...]
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the ecclsiastical bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created whiny, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalieable Rights, that among these are Blogs, Introspection, and the Pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Churches are instituted among middle class white men and women who can afford computers, deriving their just powers from the consent of the bloggers, — That whenever any Form of Church becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Honkeys to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Church, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their American Middle Class to Upper Class Deistic Principles. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Churches long established should be changed because of a boss article in Christianity Today; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that bloggers are not disposed to suffer, while other’s opinions are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of differing opinions, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute grown-up thinking, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Churches, and to provide new Spiritual Advisors for their future posts.
[...] An Alternative Church Doctrine Statement by Jessica Cheetham [...]