Response and Responsibility

I've been thinking lately about this post. It occurs to me that if my elders' actions honestly bother me, then I have a responsibility. So I find myself writing a letter today, respectfully challenging the decision they've made.

I realize at this point, spinning the wheels backward probably won't happen. It's begun; likely it will continue onward, despite what I or anyone else says. But if no one writes and no one says anything, it certainly won't change.

So often, though at another congregation, I've been summarily silenced, 1 Timothy 2 serving as a gag order. Ironically, this entire discussion revolves around that small book.

In it, they presumably find reason to limit or negate women's participation in the larger church setting. I'll spare my hermeneutical differences for the sake of argument. They take what they feel is a biblical stance -- which, whether I agree or not, is admirable.

Within this same book, we read of elders and deacons and the qualifications for each. While the role of a deacon may be somewhat nebulous, there is no indication that they were ever meant to be "junior elders" -- quite the opposite, in fact! The two are presented as distinct roles.

Based on the same argument for proper "roles" they use for the separation of the services allowed to be rendered by men versus women, the elders are not right in having redefined the deaconate and, in essence, mixing the "roles." This is a larger problem than it at first appears. It's a problem of the convenient hermeneutic, the very kind they claim to stand against. It's double talk. Either what is said is what is meant or there is a lot more "wiggle room" than has been previously admitted or accepted.

Inconsistency, particulaly in something related to what I'm supposed to profess to believe, seriously bothers me. I realize that not everything is black and white, but there are plenty of grey areas already without our manufacturing our own.

So I'm praying a lot before the final draft of this letter. I'm hoping it will be received in the spirit in which it's intended and that it will, at the very least, cause them to pause and to think about what it is this action is honestly saying.