Quite an exchange going on between me and Dontbia Nass, who, for the moment, has toned down his more glaring displays of snottiness and is, instead, offering a more subtle brand of commentary in the form of numerous citations, quotations, and observations, very few of which have much to do at all with the subject at hand — this time, feminism, women, ordination, and Scripture.
Now, he knows that. He has yet to engage with me regarding the plethora of male and female evangelical feminist, or egalitarian, scholars, but vomits a gushing stream of secular nutcase Mary Daly’s works my way. He either doesn’t understand the definition of “egalitarian,” or he doesn’t care, but he argues something along the lines of “well, men can’t have babies,” and how that, incredulously, explains by analogy that women can’t take the pulpit. For those who are still squinting and shaking their heads at that one, I’ll toss in his analysis of how the NBA shouldn’t have to lower its hoops in the name of “egalitarianism” to accommodate him, a shorter man less skilled than, say, Magic Johnson.
Yeah, my head hurts, too. But I trust, charitably, that convoluted logic like that suggests he wasn’t educated in a Wilsonian Classical Christian College, although perhaps he teaches at one. In Japan, maybe?
Anyway, why spoil it for you? Read the comments bunched together in the last few posts, and then stay tuned for my firm but gentle attempt to explain to Nass what “egalitarian” means, both in discussing evangelical feminism and as a larger social concept. It’ll be hard work, since both the Magic Johnson/NBA and “men can’t have babies” arguments have already been taken.
Perhaps I could borrow a flannel board . . .
You can see my comments at the earlier post in question, such as they are, but I’ll add here that Mary Daly is not to be dismissed as “secular.” She is an apostate, which is a very different thing. She started off as a loony Roman Catholic and went steadily further off the deep end. She was only forced into retirement from a Jesuit college because she refused to allow men in her classes. I think that she has apostasized precisely because, unlike you — who only sip at the koolaid — she picked up the whole jug and chugged it down. Simply because a person can survive sipping at the koolaid does not make it healthy.
I do grant, however, that not all implications necessarily have to be followed to their logical conclusions. Roman Catholicism is implicitly polytheistic, as is Dispensationalism. But how many Roman Catholics or Dispensationalists have you met who are actually polytheists? Probably the same number I’ve met, which is zero. Mary Daly is a rare example of a Christian woman who has taken the implications of feminism to their extreme logical conclusions. There are many warnings to be gleaned from observing a person like her, but it would not be proper to try to suggest that all Christian feminists are equally as nutty as she is. And, that was not what I was trying to do, and it was not what Rev. Wilson was trying to do. You read his reference to someone who could have been Mary Daly and started griping about what a misogynist that makes him. My primary objective in coming here to post in response is simply to argue that describing Wilson as a misogynist on the basis of his blog post was unfair.
You seemed to be thinking he was making light of rape, which was most definitely not the case. He was pointing out that there are ostensibly Christian feminists who take what God declares to be good and declare it to be evil.
You have heard H. L. Mencken’s definition of puritanism as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. Well, one corollary working defnition of Christian feminism might be the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy as Doug Wilson’s wife. That’s just an empirical definition, of course, but there seems to be plenty of evidence for it.
Comment by Dontbia Nass — June 26, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
I consider that Mary Daly, regardless of her upbringing and employment at a Jesuit school, is not a Christian because she steadfastly denies the fundamentals of the faith — which, yes, makes her an apostate, but certainly that isn’t an argument for her being a Christian. Some who dive in mainstream “Christian” waters, and who swim against the Biblical current of those waters while seeking the choppier waves of un-Biblical doctrine, may be culturally, at some point, considered “Christian,” but it would be hard for me to argue that she was ever a disciple of the Risen Lord. I don’t know that, and I hope that if she isn’t of Christ that changes, but the ultimate point, DN, is that Daly is not an evangelical, Biblical feminist. Lumping her in with EBFs is as unfair — and you know this — as a secular writer’s lumping Wilson in with David Koresh.
Why not stick to the subject and offer comments on Clark Kroeger, Keener, Bilezikian, Belleville, Gaebelin-Hull, Fee, Miles, Scorbie, Sider, Haddad, Giles, and many others who are solidly Evangelical, conservative in their view of Scripture, represent a wide spectrum of Christianity (Anglical, Baptist, Anabaptist, Pentecostal, Reformed, etc.) who, in their studies of the OT and the NT, in their original languages, came to believe that all church leadership positions should be open to all Spirit-gifted persons who desire to serve. You persist in avoiding a real discussion on EBF and continue to muddy the waters with sources that you and I both know don’t represent the subject at hand.
That, and the pseudonym, are not brave, not honest, and not becoming of a mature believer. I’ve been criticized for calling you a coward, but “not honest and not brave” hardly covers it.
Keely
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — June 26, 2009 @ 6:55 pm