Mutuality | Blog + Magazine | Spring 2018
The print + digital magazine of CBE International
Mutuality offers articles from diverse writers who share egalitarian theology and explore its intersection with everyday life.
Blog + Magazine ArticlesThe opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of CBE International or its members.
Spring 2018
Volume: 25 | Number: 1
This is What a Preacher Looks Like
In this issue of Mutuality, women share their experiences of church leadership. Featuring the four winners of CBE’s 2017 writing contest!
Contents
Just as it matters who we see on TV, it matters who stands behind our pulpits on Sundays. If the Bible teaches that women and men are both called to lead and preach (and it does), then our churches must reflect it.
As I watch my daughter mature and develop a rather alarming perceptiveness, I wonder when she will start to notice the vocational gender disparity around her, particularly in the church. Her wide-eyed five-year-old self knows nothing of a world in which her gender has something to say about how she can embody the gifts and [...]
What good, I feared, would it do my daughter to know that she was equal, but only in theory? How could she envision herself preaching if there were no women to spark her imagination? How could she be what she could not see?
“Heather has no business being in the pulpit.” The words leaped out at me from the computer screen, screaming at me from an email not written to me, but about me, to two of my male colleagues.
I was thirteen the first time I heard the words, “women cannot be preachers” spoken into thin air and inside the walls of that place where I had always been loved, had always felt safe. The words felt like a stone thrown into the rudder of a ship, they caught me, caused me to heave [...]
A poem of lament for women in the church.
As yet, the halo has not been painted. / As yet, she is still a Semitic woman / with a dead Semitic son. And yet / the halo will shine no brighter than now, / barely reflecting off bitter tears
Women leaders' very presence creates conversation because it challenges the single narrative that dominates many Christian circles—leadership is the domain of men.
