Gender Equality and Divine Design

    There has been much debate and discussion about the roles of women, in the church and in the family. Many Christians quote the Bible, saying that the man is the head of the household, and so is therefore superior to the woman. Mark Driscoll adamantly claims that the man HAS to be the one to work, and the woman needs to be the one to stay home and look after the kids. He states the the Bible is clear that a man must provide for his family (and therefore, apparently, staying home to look after kids is NOT providing for a family). Now, John Macarthur has a new book out (actually, not sure if it is ne...it may just be a new edition or cover) called Divine Design, where he talks about the roles of the genders in both family and church.
   To be honest, I skimmed through the book, so I may be taking things out of context, but to me, it seemed as if Macarthur missed the point on a lot of passages of Scripture. He seemed to be applying verses about particular churches, or particular women, and meaning that it was a universal truth. Anyway, from what I gathered from what I skimmed in the book, Women cannot be pastor's, and, like Driscoll says, should stay home with the kids. Is this really the case though?
    I think, when we start taking verses out of context and assigning certain roles and positions for genders (such as the man is the head, and provider..and the woman is the support) we miss the main point. We tend to focus on these controversial verses, and women claim that the Bible is sexist when it tells wives to Submit. I understand that the word Submit is hard to accept, and has a lot of misconceptions...and I'm not going to get into what the word means here...perhaps that will be another blog. Today, I want to focus on he ATTITUDE of people in the debate. It seems that, we want to have a seperation. We want to know, "women can or should do this, and men can or should do that". We want it to be black and white. And so long as we have this attitude, the gender equality debate will never end.
    We seem to miss the verses in which the Bible says that all have different gifts. The Bible doesn't specify that "men recieve this gift, and women recieve this one". The Bible just lists gits and tells us to use our gifts to further the Kingdom of God.
    I'm sick of this idea that, churches or companies need to have so much diversity in their staff. I hate the concept that, "every company must haveso many women on staff, so many african-americans, so many native, so many homosexuals...blah blah blah". I'm not trying to say that we need to not hire people of different ethnicity or gender...in fact I am going the opposite direction of that. We need to hire people based on their skills and talents. Why do companies get into trouble when they don't have a certain amount of "diversity"? Yes...if they are NOT hiring someone out of sexism, or racism or prejudice then yes, that is wrong...but hav we ever though that just maybe, the people that are hired are the ones that are most suited to that position? Maybe there was no prejudice behind the hiring process and they just chose who was best?
    Finally, I want to get to the Feminism group. Keep in mind, I LOVE the idea of gender equality. I think it is wrong when one gender is treated differently (for better or worse) of another gender (or race/sexual orientation/age whatever) But I hate how Feminists, or at least many of them, try to take it beyond equality. They want to make men pay and put women AHEAD of men. To many feminists, men can't do anything right. Everything is prejudice, or sexist and needs to be stopped. When men are Chivalrous and hold the door open, it is sexist...when men fail to do so, again...it is sexist. I hate these women that want special privileges, but then don't want men to have the same privileges. For examples, we go to the world of sports:
    Why are women reporters allowed into Mens dressing rooms, but not Men reporters into women dressing rooms? Women fought for the right, but dont' want men to have the same right. It has to go both way...either don't go into the Men's dressing room and wait for the athletes to come out, or allow men to go into the women's room too.
     On that note, women who fight to play on men's sports teams. I'm all for women wanting to play sports, and compete. And I think they should be able to play in whatever league they feel comfortable playing in...but why can't a man play in a girls league? There was a boy who played Field Hockey in his home country...but when he came to Canada (or maybe it was the US), the only Field Hockey teams were girl teams. But the girl teams didnt want him to play with them. So once again...it's a two way street. The key word in Gender Equality is...EQUALITY. It's not about, let's make ourselves better than them! It's about...let's stop this idea of one person being better than another and treat everyone as equals.
    Keep in mind, while this blog is about the genders, it can be applied to all differences,such as race, age, religion...anything that ha prejudices and inequality (whether real or implied). I don't like the idea that, in the home, the men have certain tasks and jobs that are ok, and the women have others. What happened to, "everyone do what they are the best at"? Why can't a man clean, or a woman mow the lawn? Why is Laudry a womans job, and fixing things a man's job? People should be able to do what they are good at, and enjoy doing. It shouldn't be based on stereotypes, or genders, or cultural norms.
     I want to finish with the hypocrisy of the Church. Many Christian and Church leaders don't like the idea of Women Pastor's. They think that the Bible is clear on the issue that men should be the leaders of the church (which is a debatable issue, but for another time). However, these same people don't seem to have a problem with major women author's and speakers such as Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore. Is writing a major book, which is a form of preaching and teaching, and speaking to a massive group of people at a large conference any different than being a pastor? Not really.
   Did I offend anyone? Maybe, and if that is the case, then please try to make sure that what you are reading and understanding is truly what I am trying to say before you call me names and disagree. But please...let me know what you think. Have I gone too far? Not far enough? What are your thoughts on this issue....or is it even still an issue?