Health Care that Covers Abortions?

There’s a possibility that Obama’s health care plan would cover abortions, if, that is, he gets elected and his health care plan goes through exactly as he wants it with no compromises whatsoever on controversial issues — which of course it won’t.

But that won’t stop people from getting offended at the possibility. They will squawk about THEIR tax money. They forget: Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar’s.

Christianity and Feminism, Part 3

Women can’t be priests because women weren’t disciples. Right?

To this, New Feminist could reply by arguing that there were women who acted as disciples, blah blah blah. There are some good arguments to be made there, in re: Priscilla and Junia and so on, but let’s skip it and cut to the chase: this whole claim is arrogant.

What, so suddenly the very same people who whine that “if Paul wanted us to take context into account, shouldn’t he have, like, spelled that out for us really clearly and in little words?” – suddenly, these people have no problem figuring out exactly what Jesus’ interior monologue just must have been when he selected disciples: “Judas, no boobies, OK; Martha, good candidate, but boobies, next; Matthew….”

If there were really some mystical difference of essence between men and women that unfitted women for the priesthood, then you’d expect that God and men would be closer in that mystical essence than women. But no… the Bible repeatedly refers to God using feminine parallels and metaphors, and most theologians wouldn’t think twice about asserting God’s nature to be neither masculine nor feminine.

So essentially this disciple bit boils down to: God is both – and more than – male and female, but only men can represent God ’cause I like the male stuff better. Also, I know exactly what Jesus was thinking.

And that is why NF calls this line of thought arrogant – and dumb.

Christianity and Feminism (Part 1)

New Feminist kicks off its series on Christianity and feminism by reminding its readers (all two of them – hello, whoever you are!) that the ordination of women is biblical.

Not only biblical – sanctioned by Paul.

“I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea,” he writes. The important word here is “servant” - diakonos in Greek. When used of men in the New Testament, it generally gets translated as “deacon” (thus the origin of the word) or “minister.” Used of Phoebe, it gets to mean “servant.” Ri-i-ight.

One of the greatest forces keeping people from the truths of feminism is Christianity, so-called – therefore, one of the greatest forces leading people to feminism can be, and should be, Christianity, rightly called. Recognizing that Paul himself approved of women ministers (and that women were ministers for the first several hundred years of the church and not banned until the sixth century), is an important first step.