Sunday, May 22, 2016

Patriarchy in UCG Not Happy With Women Writing Biblically Based Articles



UCG has been letting women write articles for blogs and their main web site for some time now.  Some men in the church have been highly offended with this over the years and now it has reached a boiling point. How dare women write articles based upon bible teachings!  Men are only allowed to do that!
Chairman Webber welcomed those that joined the gallery for this discussion. He welcomed the media department and the women who came in to hear this session. Mr. Webber mentioned concerns had been raised in the Media and Communications Committee (MCC) regarding the role of women writers dealing with certain biblical subjects. His desire with the Council’s approval was to keep this in open session. 
Rex Sexton led the discussion as the chairman of the (MCC). There have been articles written by women in our official UCG publications (Beyond Today and United News) and that have appeared in our blogs (unofficial) on specific subjects that have been raised as whether being appropriate for women to address. The question was asked if there were any written policies for what kind of articles can be written. Currently there are no specific policies written up. One of the Council’s responsibilities is to have oversight and write policies when questions and needs arise. Input was already received from the media department, and Mr. Sexton thanked them for it.
Its a fact that there are many women in the Church of God who are better educated and understand scripture than many of the men.  This does not sit well with some of the men who feel that no woman should ever tell them what to believe.
Peter Eddington, operation manager of Media and Communications Services, mentioned the August 1999 Council report under the media section that was discussed by the Council. It was a non-issue for there to be women writers. Mr. Sexton asked if the substance of the content had changed over the years since then. Mr. Eddington said since 1999 we now have more women writers, and one of the reasons is because the media department wants more ways to relate women to women in our writings.
Robin Webber then enters the fray:
Chairman Webber desired to establish focus of what was being discussed. We are discussing the role of women in media, so we are looking at what might women do with our understanding of Scripture. We are not talking about women ministers or preachers or getting up now to give messages in services. We understand there is a structure in the Church that has been recognized through the ages, so we are not going there. We all agree with that. Now we are dealing with comments by Paul about women being silent in the Church. How does that apply to teaching through writing? Culture needs to responsibly move forward, and we have to look at the context of the Scriptures. What was the apostle Paul addressing, and why was he saying it? If we use our heads and hearts and trust the administration with monitoring, the one article that came to our attention on repentance was dealing with the heart and the approach. It wasn’t dynamically preaching to the world to repent. We need to use wisdom. He was concerned that we need to take our time with this. A year or two ago we had a policy on the role of women in the Church that was not complete in tone and emphasis, so we withdrew that paper. We need to be very careful about the policies we might possibly create.
Don Ward then weighs in with at lest a slightly more enlightened point of view

Don Ward advised that we be circumspect with what commentaries might be used and their rendering interpretations towards explaining the culture of Paul’s day. He advised some interpretations convey that Paul didn’t really mean what he said because of the culture of that particular time. We see the culture has shifted as a result of the Industrial Revolution and many other things that have come to pass. Dr. Ward does not see the Word of God shifting with the culture. Dr. Ward read from 1 Timothy:2:11-12 (KJV). The Bible does give clear instruction why Paul wrote that, and it wasn’t based on the culture of the day. The question is not if they can teach. Women teach in Sabbath school. Titus 2 gives clear instruction that the older women are to instruct the younger women. 
Mr. Bradford raised the questions we need to be asking ourselves are: 1) What are the unique reasons that women do not preach at church and, 2) Do the same principles apply in writing corrective articles? 
Then to backpedal and blame the woman who wrote the article, Rainer Salomaa  says it could have all "been a mistake or poorly written", all of which ignores the fact that a MAN approved the article to be printed in the first place.
Rainer Salomaa was asked if he had any comments. Mr. Salomaa said nothing really jumps out at him that has been a problem. Regarding the article in question there shouldn’t be hours and hours of time put into policy for one article. The article could have just been a mistake. It could have been stated better perhaps. He would just trust those in that position to monitor it. He’s not sure there needs to be a Council-driven policy. He then asked if they could get the input from some of the women in the audience. Robin Webber agreed that he was going to do that. He asked for a few comments from the women or media department in the audience. 
Then Beverly Kubik dared to rock the boat and asked some pointed questions:
Beverly Kubik asked if there was a well done study paper on the verses brought up today about women not speaking at church, because if you take these verses literally then women have to put gags in their mouth when they enter the building. She asked if there was a study paper and said we should have that when addressing this topic. Robin Webber agreed that there are many commentaries on this, and they could be put together. Mrs. Kubik said she would like to see an unbiased study into those scriptures. 
She went on to comment that we encourage discussion of the sermon after service and, if we take those verses literally then women can’t talk about the sermon after services. She didn’t feel that interpretation of those verses make sense with the context of rest of the entire Bible. When Christ came He showed more respect to women than had been in the culture prior to that. She asked why that was. She asked why some women are called “prominent women.” Why were they prominent, and what were they doing in the churches there? She feels we are so fearful of anything that comes near preaching for women, yet we have no problem with women singing scriptural words. She would like to understand why these lines are being drawn, and she wants to know what is right or isn’t right. She isn’t trying to promote any idea over another. 
It will be interesting to see if the men can do what is right.  But this is the UCG after all.

You can read the entire March 2016 report here.

 

36 comments:

DennisCDiehl said...

Once you learn not to care what the Apostle Paul taught or thought on many things he would prove to be mistaken about all things are possible

DennisCDiehl said...

Also..few modern scholars believe Paul wrote Timothy or Titus. The issues addressed are too advanced for Paul's time and are issues of the larger n later church written as if from paul for credibility. It was a common practice and first n second century problem. The letters are pseudoanonymous and what we might consider forgeries today. So who really taught what?

Unknown said...

Behind closed doors and in "executive session" the council was fully briefed about the "woman's issue" in this short two minute video. This is a must see in order to understand the politic, attitude and issue that the UCG council is considering...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w

(To open, simply highlight the link above , right click on it, and then select the "Open URL" option.

B.R. said...

The church can't even understand that there is neither Greek nor Jew let alone neither male nor female.
In the Hebrew the language for Cain "sin lies at your door" and for Eve "rule over you" are rooted in common. God is not condemning Eve to live under Adam, who threw both her and God under the bus. Oh sure, let's make him the CEO with no qualifications at all for leadership!
God is telling Eve exactly what he told Cain. If you do not follow Me, your creator, then someone else will step in a lord it over you and that is a curse to you!
I learnt this from a rabbi about 5 years ago. He walked us through it in class. It was so obvious once we looked at it plainly in the Hebrew.
I think we tend to view the bible through preconceived notions rather than reading what it really says and using logic to interpret things.
Like with Adam being leader when he was clearly a mess having thrown Eve under the bus and blaming the entire fiasco on God!
"That woman YOU gave me"

Barbara said...

Oh Connie, I LOVE that video. Saw it a long time ago. What a hoot and so very true.
Thanks for linking it again.

Anonymous said...

Dennis is right. There was no one "Paul." Once you come to view the Bible as it really is, a hodge Podge of fiction and misrepresentation, it ceases to be any kind of authority in anything. People like me long ago ceased to give it any kind of authority over anything in our lives. I live by humanist ethics and as much as can be gleaned from actual history, keeping in mind that the victors always write the histories.

Stephen said...

It is so funny (not funny) that these guys think they have some kind of unspecified authority, specialness, or divine clairvoyance, and yet show such blatant ignorance of biblical facts such as those Dennis mentioned, or even modern morality and ethics. Women keep silent? Bwahaha!

Byker Bob said...

As a general comment, this is an example of what generally happens when a strict literalist approach is taken and enforced by people who fail to dig deeper into historical and cultural contexts as well as into the greater understanding that today's academics have of the ancient languages.

The cultural understanding of the early apostolic church was still largely based on what had been the gold standard for hundreds of years, the Levitical priesthood. Male Levites were schooled and trained. Females only knew what their husbands or the priests had taught them.

Having women teach in church back then would have been almost as bad as would having a self- taught person who had spent six months of intensive study in a public library teach us today!

BB

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

What about Timothy's mother and grandmother? Didn't Paul (or whomever) imply that Timothy had received his introduction to the Lord through them? What about Priscilla? Did Paul overlook the fact that she was a she? Talk about mixed messages! I say let the women speak their piece - it's about time! After all, there's more of them anyway.

DennisCDiehl said...

UCG and all the splits, splinters and RCG slivers are doomed to change at the pace of the slowest and most literalist "Mere Bible Readers" members. They not only won't put up with understanding the real background and origin of scriptures or the fact that any number of NT books are "forgeries" written in the name of by not actually by the author whose name is affixed. They won't put up with finding out that what they take literally like Genesis 1-11 are myths with meaning but not literally true. The leadership could know these things if they did some critical thinking, reading and study but even if they came to understand it, who could they tell? No one. They are locked into the simplistic Sabbath School version of Scripture and simply cannot change anything. They can grow in neither grace or knowledge. It is too threatening and they have enough trouble with personalities in leadership without introducing an understanding that real theologians and scholars have but they simply cannot abide.


I'd love to be at the "women in publications" meeting and say, "Well you know Paul did not write Timothy or Titus and these are later problems addressed by the established church who thought women were the fault of everything theological. So we can skip our concerns about what they thought back then as we know better today and let the women speak up in writing and teaching. After all...sometimes men, we have to ask ourselves just why we have nipples and the implications of which came first, the man or the woamn?.." :)

Byker Bob said...

What I don't understand is that "the world" seems to recognize that women are the conscience of civilized society, the ones who mold and shape the next generation, and impart and place the values into the children.

Ladies in my life have also shared with me that it is much easier for a woman to get close to God, than it is for a man. That can actually be the chief value that a woman adds to a man's life. The problem comes into play when people attempt to undermine. An editor of a publication dedicated to a philosophy will pick up on undermining in .05 seconds! I don't understand where UCG's problem is. It must be P.R. with the ACOG literalists.

BB

Anonymous said...

UCG would be better off if nobody spoke in church.

Michael said...

Dennis wrote:
" After all...sometimes men, we have to ask ourselves just why we have nipples and the implications of which came first, the man or the woamn?.." :)"

And modern genetic knowledge has helped underscore the ignorance in which all of that was written. For male dominated tribes it was pretty "obvious" that man was the basic body plan and female was the afterthought.
The chromosomes show differently of course...Females have 23 pairs of perfectly paired chromosomes. Males have the "mutated X" (=Y), making them the "deviants". Generally speaking, a gene called SRY pushes the "normal" development (female) off the expected path to become a male.
The Genesis authors couldn't have possibly known this, although a "Creator" should have...

Anonymous said...

12.01PM did Adam really throw God and Eve under the bus, or was he simply exercising childlike manipulation and excuse making, such as 'the dog ate my homework.' After all, Adam was 'newly created.' We cannot read peoples minds, so it's risky imputing motives. Everyone is bound to be wrong from time to time. I just read that at a monastery, the leader points out inappropriate behaviour, and leaves it to that member to discern the motives involved. I think this a wise policy,

Regards TradingGuy

BR said...

Trading guy,
He threw them under the bus. It is detailed right there. He threw the entire blame on his wife and then proceeded to tell God it was all His fault.
Bound to be wrong from time to time? It was wrong enough that God threw them the heck out!
It doesn't seem the childish bit was much of a defense.
Eve was fooled but Adam knew exactly what he was doing. Yet they both got their butts kicked.
God didn't seem to think "newly created" was an excuse for their behavior. And we have no idea how new they were at all.
Childlike is what Christians are supposed to be.Manipulative is how the bible describes satan.
Manipulation of the sort Adam used is called throwing someone under the bus. In the case of the dog eating homework you are throwing the dog under the bus.
It is also called bearing false witness.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
UCG would be better off if nobody spoke in church.

Bwahahahahahahaha! Truer words were never spoken!

Anonymous said...

Never a truer word spoken.

Anonymous said...

Haha I totally agree

Anonymous said...

Asherah.

Any questions?

She's also mentioned in the Bible by names such as Ashtarath and Ashtoreth.



DennisCDiehl said...

Trading guy...i always wondered if they were forbidden the tree of the knowledge which is evidently God food, why the blame for not knowing good from evil? I suppose we should not over analyze myth

DennisCDiehl said...

"Tree of knowledge of good and evil"

Anonymous said...


“Patriarchy in UCG Not Happy With Women Writing Biblically Based Articles.”


Women in the UCG do not write Biblically based articles, and they are not about to either. They gossip, lie, slander, cause division, and try to run the show like the Biblical Jezebel, and are not about to change. Some of these wicked women are actually GCI members who also go to the UCG to gossip and try to cause division there too. Others are rude, crude, old slobwomen in pants with men's haircuts who blurt out shameful noises as the unclean spirits move them. It is best if their thoughts and words not be put in print.

Do not believe any of that nonsense about how highly educated UCG women are and about how they know anything about the Bible. The UCG is a godless mess, and that includes the women there too, not just the men. If you had any idea what actually goes on in the UCG you would not want to waste your time reading or listening to anything that any of them write or say. It is all useless, and it will all continue to be useless, or they would not be in the splitting mess that they are in. Reading the writings of stubborn and rebellious know-it-all women will just hasten the demise of the UCG.

Anonymous said...

BR, I disagree. The implication is there that Adam threw Eve and God under the bus, but nothing more. I remind you that human communication is 7% in the words spoken, 38% in the tone of voice, and 55% in the body language. Since we were not present in the garden of Eden, we do not know the vocal tone, and body language that Adam used with his 'the woman you gave me.' Hence we cannot know Adams intent. To confidently insist doing so, is black and white thinking.

Dennis, isn't the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil,' what today is called the school of hard knocks. Not the best way to learn. Gods not against learning, many scriptures demand it.

Cheers TradingGuy

Anonymous said...

OK, Anon 2:44, now tell us what you really think.

Anonymous said...

What about Asherah?

Anonymous said...

An odd comment, 2:44, and one I can't quite follow without knowing the extent of your experience with UCGs congregants.

RSK said...

I don't mean to sidebar, Dennis, but why do Armstrong groups always refer to the man as "The Apostle Paul"? Its not like there's another biblical Paul to differentiate him from.

Anonymous said...

2.44 PM finally, someone confirming my dating experience with church woman. Well done 2.44 PM.

DennisCDiehl said...

"Apostle" Paul is just a habit. I always wonder why everone has such none jewish names. I guess Apostle Schlomo or Mordeci the Just etc. Well except for poor Judas

DennisCDiehl said...

...just doesn't cut it...

Anonymous said...

Here's some 'Pastor-authorized' examples of titles for topics that women's' writing should consist of -

* Avoiding Gossip!

* God's Way of Saving with Coupons!

* Parallel Parking- A Woman's Nightmare!

* Seven More Ways to Submit to your Husband!(As If the First Seventy Weren't Enough!)

* Tattling: Your Pastor NEEDS to Know of Other Women's Sins!

* Dyson, Shark, or Bissell? Vacuuming Tips for Unleavened Bread!

* So You Think Spending More than Twenty Dollars on a Dress is OK?

* Cataplasms: You Deserved the Spanking. Do You REALLY Deserve Cataplasms?

* Thrift Shops- Save Money so Hubby can put MORE Toward Church Offerings!

* Seven Signs You May Be a JEZEBEL, and GOD'S WAY of Atoning for Such Sins!

* Pantyliners on a Budget- DON'T Throw your Old Worn Out Cloth Items Away!

* Homemade Sauces to Make Chicken Hot Dogs Taste Like Prime Rib!

* Do You REALLY Need a New Broom? Clip Those Frazzled Ends to Make it Like New!

* Does Your Child Want a Pony? How to Give that Kid a $2 Rusty Bike from Craigslist Instead!

* Your Daughter Wants to attend a Taylor Swift Concert? Swiftly Spank her While Showing Jelly Videos!

* Is Your Roof Leaking? God Wants You to Cast Your Fears Aside: Climb Up and Repair It!

* Long Sleeves and Long Pants for Your Kids in Summer: Hide the Bruises(Your Neighbors Don't Understand Godly Punishment)!

* Ladies: Are You Fornicating? Do You Lust after Tom Selleck when Watching 'Blue Bloods'?

Ralph said...

on May 24, 2016 at 8:11 AM
Dennis D. wrote:-

""Apostle" Paul is just a habit. I always wonder why everyone has such none jewish names."

Probably because most English speaking people read an English translation, where the original name is transliterated(?)
Much the same as Jesus is an English presentation of the Hebrew Yeshua. Use the name Yeshua and most people wonder what you are talking about. There are some who will even belittle you for using that original name.

cheers
ralph.f

Retired Prof said...

Why "the Apostle Paul?"

Maybe in part because fundamentalist Protestants, including Armstrong and his followers, reject the Catholic and High Church appellation "Saint Paul." However, the single syllable "Paul" is not enough for a man of such standing. They had to give him some honorific, and why stop at two syllables when you can have five?

Me, I'm all for keeping "the Apostle," though it can fit afterward too, as in "John the Baptist." That way it makes this classic limerick possible.

An old archaeologist, Throssel,
Discovered an interesting fossil.
He could tell by the bend
And the knob on the end,
'Twas the peter of Paul the Apostle.

Byker Bob said...

Well, we referred to all of the apostles in that same way. The Apostle John, the Apostle Peter, etc. In some of my comments, I've tried to mix it up a bit by using the Saint routine, and quite predictably have been thrown into the "Jesuit" box by some of our binary thinking friends. People get accustomed to the Armstrong shibboleths, and comment when we use other methods of expressing ourselves.

BB

Anonymous said...

Ralf, I'm one of those that belittle you for your sacred name nonsense. I also belittle the gobbledygook DNA nonsense people. There are many wackos that need belittling.

Anonymous said...

...
because he was without,
he had his doubts,
old poor peter,
the day he lost his meter.