Question: why just men? I mean, I can understand if you believe that women ought not to get up and preach before unrelated men. But for instance I know of Orthodox Jewish groups where women have their own minyans and women-only classes.

It just seems to me that women in traditional female roles (and nontraditional ones too!) have lots of concerns that men may understand intellectually but can't know from a gut perspective, and that filtering the same words and message the men are delivering through a woman's experience might be helpful. I'd be curious to know what you think.

(Sorry, don't know any writer who's addressed theology from a Christian woman's perspective except maybe L'Engle in some of her nonfiction. Not my area. There must be some good ones (I bet you already know them. And I bet commenters here do, too.) Blu Greenberg has written very well about being an Orthodox Jewish woman, but I don't know if that would interest you. I'm sure there's a lot of commonality, though.)

I *knew* someone was going to ask that question, and I thought it would probably be you. ;-) The men-as-teachers is a Bible thing. Honestly, like Anne (of Green Gables, in case I just lost you), I think the women could do a really good job preaching, but I'm OK with that not being our role. Women's sphere of influence in our congregation (and thousands of others) is more behind the scenes (you know: behind every good preacher is the wife who helped him with ideas, editing, and typing, and listened to him practice), among ourselves in ladies' studies as you mention, or in small roles, because of the specifications given about the early church in the new testament. It's something I agree with, personally, as far as being the main teacher goes, but I'm planning to make a case for women doing Scripture readings with light commentary, and the like. We certainly have insights to add, and, like you say, a perspective that the men wouldn't otherwise hear... except from their wives, which brings us back to the behind-the-scenes concept. :) Well, and at weekly Bible studies, where everyone is free to share whatever he or she has learned from that week's chapter. We have a lot of really good (sometimes lively and sometimes even heated) discussions in that setting, and I think that's where what you call the filter of women's experience comes into play.

I know that to a lot of women this sounds draconian and chauvinistic, but that's truly not how it plays out. Our different roles don't mean that we think we're inferior or superior to each other, just that we use our God-given abilities in different ways. Does that make sense?

Thanks for asking and for the Greenberg recommendation. I'll look her up -- she does sound interesting.

It's not that I don't understand, it's just that I think those ladies' studies could be a hugely valuable thing, not just a throwaway activities. Some of this is certainly coming from my Jewish perspective, and some of it is coming from the roles of Anne and Susan in LMM and like women in similar books. men can preach all they want, but you're not going to have a faith-based home OR a functioning church without women. (One thing you and I will disagree with: I keep remembering that those works on the early church, even the ones about women like Macrina, were written by men. You will say they were divinely inspired, I think.) And I think a lot of the actual practical detail on how to create the atmosphere you want in those homes and churches is likeliest to come from discussion among women.

I am trying to think of this from your perspective, not mine, because mine wouldn't help here. From that perspective, what I keep coming up with is that men may explain why bad things happen even to the faithful, why children need to be brought up with a close relationship to Jesus, maybe even things like why women must menstruate or why men are better fitted to preach. But for exactly *how* to keep your family feeling God's love even when the children are being picked on by mean kids, you're having cramps, and the day's Bible passage doesn't seem to apply to your life just now, you need to hear from women.

All that said, I think that giving the men a woman's perspective, as you say, is brilliant. Theorize all they want, at the end of the day they need to understand their families and we all need to help each other with that part. (This applies outside matters of faith, too.)

(Me, I just keep thinking of Susan getting up and shaming a roomful of men into working for the war effort. But that's just me.) And I do think you'd like a lot to agree with in Greenberg - the book I have of hers is On Women and Judaism, and in it she discusses different-and-complimentary roles quite a lot.

For the record, I finally got around to istening to a good chunk of this. Good sermon. Well spoken, interesting, funny in parts, friendly, and based on references. (I used to get so annoyed when I lived in Texas, home of loooots of fundamentalist evangelizing Christians, at the ones who claimed to be literal Bible believers and yet knew less of their own Scriptures than I did. ) If you're going to bring up kids to follow your faith, I think it's only responsible to give them this kind of solid grounding, not just say, "because I said so"..

(Of course there are points I disagree with and a thing or two I remember differently and would need to go look up - wouldn't want to give the impression I'm about to go convert or anything.) But given the postulates it starts from, this is logical, edifying, and entertaining enough to let people pay attention.

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