Hermenuetics

Comments

A great idea. Good luck.

Posted By: ROSE WATKINS | April 2, 2009 12:29 PM

I'm in! Sounds great... -M

Posted By: Martha Heassler | April 2, 2009 1:54 PM

Fashion? Please stop demeaning Christian women. We want to grow closer to God and become mature disciples: pandering to self-focused interests like fashion is an insult.

Posted By: Kris Johnson | April 2, 2009 2:01 PM

Why her*meneutics? Might as well extend the play on words to her*womeneutics.

Posted By: SallyB | April 2, 2009 2:20 PM

At last, a CT publication I can relate to. It's so offputting to read male writers.

Posted By: Trudi | April 2, 2009 2:23 PM

I am most interested in this. Will this be in a e-newsletter format....?

Always looking for good illustrations and images that women relate to...Thanks.

Posted By: Bonnie Brown | April 2, 2009 3:12 PM

The title's great! It's very clever, and the blog's a great idea.

Fashion's part of life, and it's artistic and the beauty of it glorifies God. To say that Christian women shouldn't be interested in it is like saying they shouldn't be good homemakers and decorate because it's self-focused.

Posted By: Anna P | April 2, 2009 3:31 PM

What I would love to see is a Christianity Today blog on gender issues geared not exclusively to women but where men would be encouraged to weigh in as well. The more we can work together, the more we will reflect what the body of Christ is meant to be.

Posted By: Caroline Schleier Cutler | April 2, 2009 4:01 PM

Thanks for your feedback, Caroline. We hope to engage with men and invite them to contribute guest posts as well. Please do check back.

Posted By: Sarah Pulliam | April 2, 2009 4:26 PM

Interesting. Will put it in my rss feeder.

Posted By: sas | April 2, 2009 4:36 PM

One comment said: "At last, a CT publication I can relate to. It's so offputting to read male writers." I cannot imagine what experiences in the church led her to say that, nor do I want to think about what responses one would see if a male reader had said "It's so offputting to read female writers." Can we not agree that Christ said that in our community (The Body of Christ) there is neither "male nor female"? This whole line of thought is vaguely disquieting...

Posted By: Alexander Patico | April 2, 2009 4:51 PM

rock on ladies

Posted By: mgembola | April 2, 2009 5:15 PM

Thanks Sarah for this endeavor, I love the idea. With reference to Caroline Cutler's comment "the more we can work together, the more we will reflect what the body of Christ is meant to be", I agree completely. The problem is, though, that unless godly men will advocate for and invite women into the leadership bastion of male privilege that is the Evangelical church, we remain voiceless and invisible. Sadly, too few godly men are willing to be our advocates and conversational and leadership partners. Isn't it wonderful that Jesus was willing to do that. Wish some of his male followers would be so radical. In my really rebellious moments I make sick jokes like "we don't believe in same sex marriage but we believe in same sex church leadership". THAT'S ONLY HALF THE IMAGO DEI!!! No wonder the church is handicapped. Oh, boy, I'd better quit. I know the church is Jesus' fiancee and I truly want to love and be faithful to it. I really do. I'm going now to practice my solo for Sunday "Rise Up O Men of God".

Posted By: Bev Gordon | April 2, 2009 5:23 PM

This will be a great help for me in my womens ministry. Living in todays world there is so much involved in our everyday living. Being able to support women in a new and excieting way that will show them that in every area of life God cares what happens.
Thankyou

Posted By: Pauleen Kite | April 2, 2009 6:10 PM

Great idea to have the blog, but I will stop reading quickly if the emphasis is heavy on fashion and entertainment and light on the things that really matter. Please help to release the stereotypes, not reinforce them! Synergy (originated by Carolyn Custis James) seems to be the only group I've found that is focused upon doing exactly that.

Posted By: Polly | April 2, 2009 6:48 PM

Polly, I agree with you about Synergy. They do a great work in overcoming stereotypes and I love the writings of Carolyn Custis James. Another group that does this well is Christians for Biblical Equality. They also have a many "godly men [who] are willing to be our advocates and conversational and leadership partners" as Bev Gordon put it so well. It truly is wonderful to see this kind of unity.

Posted By: Caroline Schleier Cutler | April 2, 2009 7:59 PM

I think "Her.meneutics" is a great name. That's the only reason I came to check this out. I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll do here and trusting that it will help us learn to make Jesus "the main thing" in all aspects of our lives.

Posted By: Becky | April 2, 2009 8:07 PM

Thanks for your feedback, Polly. We hope to cover fashion and entertainment as we cover theology, church life, or spirituality. Discussing fashion and entertainment are part of engaging with our culture. I'm glad that Synergy is filling a need for you. We hope to be informative and provide a space for daily discussion about a broad range of topics.

Posted By: Sarah Pulliam | April 2, 2009 9:51 PM

Mmm, looking at the date, could this be an April Fool's joke?

Posted By: Val Clark | April 3, 2009 12:37 AM

if you're going to talk fashion, I hope its in a deeper vain than "how to have the latest look and still be modest" or some such thing. if we're going to talk about beauty, let's talk REAL beauty not the culturally defined shallow thing that imitates beauty.

I usually end up staying away from women's blogs and Bible Studies because they always seem to presume that I'm more interested in circumstantial issues than in real meat.

I hope this blog won't avoid the meat at all!

Posted By: ronda | April 3, 2009 8:28 AM

Hi Ronda, thank you for encouraging us to stick with the "real meat." We hope to cover the topics that are central to our readers, including spiritual formation and church life. We have included "fashion" in our list of interests because we believe that the clothing we wear is not spiritually neutral, but is another element of human life that is being redeemed by Jesus Christ. We hope to hold fashion up to the light of the gospel and ask, "How can we think Christianly about clothing as both a necessity and a form of artistic expression?" And we need thoughtful readers like you to help us do that! So stay tuned.

Posted By: Katelyn Beaty | April 3, 2009 9:10 AM

Ah yes, the United States is willingly giving up its sovereignty to the incipient iron and clay one world government and CT is starting a blog with a cute name for the ladies. Yeah, that's what I am really interested in right now.

Posted By: naomi | April 3, 2009 2:47 PM

I'm mildly interested. But also curious ... why not just mix the women in with the men? Then the CT blog will reflect the both genders (and a more complete reflection of God's creation)? Why are you perpetuating the failed notion that we have to be separate?

Posted By: sonja | April 3, 2009 6:16 PM

mgembola, I loved your post!

Posted By: Carol | April 3, 2009 6:22 PM

I loved the mgembola post! Evangelicals - "we don't believe in same sex marriage but we do believe in same sex leadership" was priceless.

Posted By: Wagner | April 3, 2009 7:21 PM

To Alexander Patico's comment above, quote,

"Can we not agree that Christ said that in our community (The Body of Christ) there is neither "male nor female"?"

First off, that was Paul who wrote that. Second, it is a gross misuse of Scripture, which does not deny there are sexes, but rather that only in regards salvation: that is the context, so don't twist it (2 Peter 3:16).

As to some of the Egalitarian comments, Ahem, "women should be silent in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak", and please don't wrest it by fronting a non-contradiction to speak back: there was little confusion over this either in the NT (hermeneutics hasn't a problem today, either), in early Christian writing, or in historical Christianity, until feminism and the egalitarian ideals came to contend for equal legitimacy in the Churches vs. Scripture's teaching on the sexes.

Posted By: John | April 4, 2009 5:03 AM

Katelyn, you wrote:
"We have included "fashion" in our list of interests because we believe that the clothing we wear is not spiritually neutral, but is another element of human life that is being redeemed by Jesus Christ. We hope to hold fashion up to the light of the gospel and ask, "How can we think Christianly about clothing as both a necessity and a form of artistic expression?"

I'm curious about why this might be considered a strictly female line of conversation? I know men who would love to talk about this. Keeping the conversation separate harms both men and women. Why are we perpetuating the damage?

Why not include these topics on the main CT blog and ensure that women have an adequate voice there? Keeping women separate is not going help either the men or the women begin to reflect the Imago Dei to a hurting world.

Posted By: sonja | April 5, 2009 9:33 AM

According to your own description, you provide "news and analysis from the perspective of evangelical women" -- if this first week or so is to be any indication of the future direction of your blog, I need to know where to turn in my "Union of Evanvelicals" card, because I certainly don't belong in this camp.

Your latest post dismisses BXVI as a "spiritual leader" who apparently engages in inadequate "either/or" thinking. Say whatever else you want about the Pope, but one thing he is not is an "either/or" idealist. In addition, in this post you fail to mention the case of Uganda, the one genuine success in subSaharan Africa. And guess what their ABC campaign emphasized? That's right, abstinence over the easy promotion of condoms. The plain fact of the matter is Benedict was right.

In your second post you waffle on Plan B's anti-implantation action by saying that is what, "some people consider to be equivalent to an abortion." In addition, on a critical issue such as this, you offer absolutely no "analysis". In your post on Forever 21 you seem more concerned about fashion than the Christian virtues of modesty, chastity and humility which were not even mentioned!

In addition, a great many of us here in Colorado wish the Haggards would just shut up and go away. Instead, you provide them with just one more outlet for their publicity-seeking behaviour. Do you honestly think a dressed up version of the Jerry Springer show is an appropriate venue for talking about the things they apparently talked about?

You seem to do most of your research by consulting mainstream media sources instead of the Holy Scriptures or any number of dependable religious news and discussion sites. Did you consult the Christian Medical and Dental Association's site before putting together your post on Plan B? Did you check Zenit or the Vatican's website to find out the context of BXVI's remark about condoms?

Frankly, without doing some basic fact-checking, I don't know how you can even begin to claim you are providing news and analysis. Is it any wonder so many Evangelicals are finding Rome and Antioch so attractive if this is all that is on offer?

Kamilla

Posted By: Kamilla | April 6, 2009 2:27 AM

Some of you have asked why we chose to do something specifically for women. We are not trying to exclude men, but we want an outlet for women writers to write about issues and ideas women often talk about. We also want to highlight what women are doing, whether they are writing books, participating in political leadership, care taking, or other interesting pursuits. We're not interested in excluding, but we hope that this reaches some of you who are interested in discussing issues and ideas with other women.

Kamilla, please feel free to send us ideas of what we should cover. You may disagree with our approach to stories, which is fine. We regularly check places like the CMDA and the Vatican's websites on our own time, but we may not necessarily cite them in every post. We're here to inform and provide a platform to discuss, but in a blog format, we may not cover every specific angle of something. We understand if you don't necessarily agree with everything, but we hope that you can still engage with the issues. We're eager to hear about what you're interested in, so feel free to send us emails or continue to comment on the posts.

Posted By: Sarah Pulliam | April 6, 2009 9:49 AM

I believe that blindly stating (proof texting) "women be silent" or "I will not permit a woman to teach" is just like stating "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." Now, I know none of us believes that the Bible advocates slavery, although those verses were used to advocate slavery in the 1800s. The verses on women and slaves pertain to situations unique to that time.

This new blog should be very interesting, although I agree with some others that maybe fashion isn't the best topic. I'd like to see some "meaty" topics and leave fashion to Vogue.

Posted By: K. | April 6, 2009 5:29 PM

Well, at least she used Scripture.

Posted By: Anonymous | April 11, 2009 7:48 PM

While women compose the majority of the church membership, many denominations deny us a position and voice in leadership. I hope that this site will educate and increase the awareness among evangelicals that God created humankind-both male and female and the commission He gave to have dominion over His creation is to both of them. I believe that the gospel should be liberating and not perpetuating the subjugation of the other humankind. Please count me in if this is one of your mission.

Posted By: Beckie Mislang | April 11, 2009 8:52 PM

IN the final analysis, whatever her.meneutics do will be the cause of unhappiness to some. I think the name rocks, I think that women are interested in fashion (in general) and it's not demeaning to occasionally mention it. I also think that women love to chat with other women and hear what they have to say. None of the above excludes us from having deep and intelligent conversations about relevant things. Even the most Christ focused and intellectually mature people allow themselves room to discuss issues not pertaining to deep spirituality at times... this is all her.meneutics are intending to do. Occasional light heartedness doesn't indicate lack of maturity or value of serious subjects.

Posted By: Bev | April 27, 2009 12:39 PM