Robert H. Schuller, the founder and pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California, announced on Wednesday that his daughter would be the new leader of the church.
The Crystal Cathedral is known mostly for it’s “Hour of Power” television ministry. Schuller had recently ousted his son, Robert A. Schuller, from leadership. The Cathedral has basically built their whole ministry around a self-esteem gospel.
In the first link above, Schuller’s daughter said this:
“Our church didn’t even start ordaining women until 1973,” she said today. “I’m proud of my dad for doing this and I hope I can serve as a role model for younger women who want to get things accomplished in this church.”
Basically (probably unknowingly), she is saying, “I’m so proud that my Dad is in violation of Scripture by disobeying what God says about eldership in the local church. And I hope I can be a great example of disobedience to other women.”
Men are made to be leaders. Women are made to be helpers. Leader doesn’t mean superior. Helper doesn’t mean subservient. God has laid out the rules for the church, and churches who claim to follow Jesus and his word have no excuse to not obey them.
James,
If you’ve read my blog enough, you know I’m a very strict complementarian, but I’m going to have to take issue with the way you’ve put this.
That’s not at all what she’s saying!
I don’t know anything about the Crystal Cathedral ministry–and to be honest it sounds sketchy– but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
She is following what she deems to be biblical truth. She is not, not, not outright endorsing disobeying God’s word–as you seem to imply.
Let us remember: “The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God” (Romans 14:6).
Now while I absolutely disagree with Mrs. Schueller-Coleman, I think she is metaphorically “observing the day” in honor of the Lord. Paul spoke very strictly against day-observance, yet he says here that one can observe it in honor of the Lord. One can do something theologically incorrect in honor of the Lord.
So while theology is incredibly, incredibly important, one’s heart is more important. Even if her philosophy on men and women’s roles is completely wack, we cannot assume that she is intending to make herself an example of disobedience to the Lord and to lead others astray. Such is not fair.
I know many women who have taken leadership positions. People I respect very much, yet whom I disagree with very much. And I’ve learned (and believe me, I’ve learned) that this type of rhetoric is not the way to win them over. You cannot just say, “You disagree with me. You’re trying to lead God’s elect astray!” It will not work.
(Note: this is an updated comment.)
Thanks Jamie for the comment. I probably didn’t write that very well at all and I apologize that I cam across as attacking her heart and intentions. I don’t want to be that guy, so let me try to clarify.
There’s no doubt in my mind that her intention is good. That’s why when I wrote what she “basically said” I prefaced it with “(probably unknowingly)”. She thinks she’s obeying the Bible, but she’s really not. Here’s an example: My friend runs a red light, and he swears that it was green. He, unknowingly, ran a red light. His intention was very good, seeking to obey the rules of the road. But when he gets pulled over, the officer will not be satisfied with this excuse.
The bottom line is that what she is doing is disobedience — good intention or not. It’s not that she disagrees with me, it’s that she is violating Scripture. I don’t think women elders/pastors is a second level issue, and I know you don’t either. She is certainly not being an example of obedience to younger women in this issue. She is not doing what older women are called to do in Titus 2. She is unknowingly being an example of disobedience.
So, I’m not assuming she is intending to lead God’s elect astray. She’s doing it unknowingly. Nevertheless, when faced with God’s judgment someday, intentions will not matter. Bad theology and doctrine do not reveal a pure heart with good intentions. This reveals a misguided, stained heart that will always be crooked until Jesus comes back. That is true in all believers. This issue just happens to be more important to me than being wrong about say, for example, when Christ returns or what the millennium is all about.
I apologize again if I was unclear in my communication. I’m working on it. Thanks for pointing that out, Jamie. I do appreciate it.
James,
What do you consider second level issues? How many levels is your breakdown?
“Nevertheless, when faced with God’s judgment someday, intentions will not matter. Bad theology and doctrine do not reveal a pure heart with good intentions. This reveals a misguided, stained heart that will always be crooked until Jesus comes back. That is true in all believers.”
Do you think you might also be unknowingly doing wrong? How do we ever really know?
Cheryl,
Hello, my name is Jordan and I’m “filling in” for James while he’s on sebatacle. I’m going to try and answer your question…James can correct later if he wishes.
I’m not sure I completely understand your question so I’m going to rephrase it a couple of different ways to help me understand and you can correct where needed.
Are you asking:
1)Can we ever know we are doing something wrong?
Yes. We can know what is right and what is wrong because God has laid down His moral law in the Bible. Even if you are not a Christian, I am guessing that you look at choices in life as being good or bad. Yes, there are times that drrawing the line is hard…not as often as many people think, but circumstances do arise.
2)Can we ever know we are doing something wrong unknowingly?
No, and that is exactly why we need to be learning what God has taught us and to be in community with others…like Bible study or some small group or coffee with friends.
Does that help?
Jordan
Thanks Jordan. It helps some, but what I was trying to get at (and didn’t figure out a way to express clearly) is that the comment I quoted left me with a sense of establishing an unattainable standard – that God will judge our actions whether we knew they were wrong or not – which seems unfair. “Unfair” seems to be a recurring issue of mine here. :) James appears to me to be judging this woman for something he says she doesn’t know is wrong, which led me to wonder if he thinks there isn’t anything he’s unknowingly doing wrong as well. If he thinks he is not unknowingly doing wrong, how does he know for sure? If he thinks he is, or might be, what exactly does he believe God’s consequence for that will be?
Okay, I see now. I’m going to pull a switcher-roo (spelling?) and replace James with myself. I think I can do this here because we are in agreement (at least for the most part).
If this woman is claiming to be a follower of Jesus and trying to obey God, then I would suspect that she knows the Bible (I’m usually an optimist of people). She is probably aware of what God has said concerning the issue we are discussing here. So I’m not sure that she is doing it unknowingly. But, I don’t think that is your main point.
To the issue of doing something wrong unknowingly, I’m not sure that we can claim that most of the time. But to those times that we do is the ‘problem’. Probably the best example that I have of this is my brother and me. About a year and a half ago my brother was telling me about a conversation he was having with someone and how through it he realized that by saying some of the things he did that he wasn’t being as loving as he should have been. While he was telling me this, I thought, “Oh, darn, I’ve been having the same conversation and saying the same things”. So, yes, I do believe that we all do some things that we should not do, but as Christians that is a given. We are called to meditate on God’s Word. We’re supposed to be learning what God wants and what God doesn’t want…What God wants is good for us and what God doesn’t want is bad for us.
As to the consequences, well that I’m not really sure. My guess (guess because I haven’t done research on the subject) is that because we are sinning we will have consequences in this lifetime that affect our relationship with God…as Christians anyway, possibly as non-Christians.
What do you think?
Jordan
What do I think? Good question! :) I’m not a Christian and don’t feel I really understand Christianity very well but I’ve recently been learning quite a bit more about it from James through this blog. I’ll take a stab at an answer though. Since the basic tenet of Christianity is that anyone who believes in Jesus goes to heaven, we can definitively rule out consequences after death. (Is that right?) So any consequences must occur in life, as you said. In your example, speaking less-than-ideally-lovingly to someone could have consequences in your relationship to that person – they pull away from you and you are left somewhat lonelier than you were. I’m having a harder time imagining what the consequence would be for the woman preacher in the original example. I vaguely remember a verse though, that says something to the effect of, “one who loves you chastises you rather than let you go on doing wrong, in such a way that stops you from doing wrong.” So I think it would have to be, for a Christian, that consequences do occur, but the consequences are unique to each situation because they will show you exactly what your error was, if you are paying attention.
[this is the same Jordan as before]
Sounds pretty good to me : )
God wants what is best for us. We tend to want what we like. I would say that it is not just that we are paying attention, but that we are seeking the correction of God in our lives. We should be continually working on changing what we like to what God wants for us (which is what is best). Of course, this doesn’t happen by thinking, “I’m going to be better from now on,” but instead is an ongoing work that is firstly and lastly done by God the Holy Spirit, we (Christians) are of course called to be seeking God through the Bible and prayer.
On a side note, what is your religious/philisophical/worldview background/affiliation? If you don’t want to share about yourself, that’s okay, I can just interact better with people I know a little more.
Three years ago I converted to Reform Judaism. I was actually raised Lutheran, but the older I got the more questions I had, that I couldn’t find answers to, and people didn’t seem to want me to even ask. Since I couldn’t understand Christianity, once I left home I stopped going to church and spent many years without a religious home. During those years however I continued to question, and seek answers about God from within myself. When I had finally arrived at some things that made sense to me, I discovered that what I had independently come up with was exactly Reform Judaism! So I signed up for an Introduction to Judaism class at a nearby synagogue, that has become my home congregation, and then met with one of the rabbis there for nearly a year and a half, to prepare for my conversion. I’ve also attended the weekly Torah study for about four years now. I love everything about Judaism and can’t imagine ever not being Jewish but I also really appreciate James’, and now your, willingness to address all the questions that still remain unanswered for me about Christianity. My greatest passion in life (and subject of my blog) is to try to find ways for people to be at peace with one another, across our religious and national identity boundaries, and a major part of that is to understand others as much as possible.
I know I keep going on a tangent, but oh well….
What are your thoughts on Jesus? and I don’t mean the New Testament or Christianity, just Jesus.
Here are my current thoughts. I consider my historical knowledge incomplete, and welcome additional information or corrections.
I think there was an actual person that the NT stories are based on. Let’s call him Jesus (even though that can’t actually be what he would say if you traveled back in time and asked him “what’s your name?” :) It’s not at all unlikely that a person would have roamed around, teaching, saying the things he said. In fact most of what he said had already been discussed by Hillel and Shammai years earlier, and Jesus largely agrees with Hillel (as does Jewish halachah).
Being ruled by the Romans made life unpleasant (understatement) and many people of the time believed the Messiah would be sent shortly, to free them from the Romans. Many people even said they were the Messiah. Since by definition of “Messiah”, the Messiah would overthrow the Romans, anyone who attracted a large following and/or was thought of as possibly being the Messiah (even if he didn’t say he was) would have been regarded as a threat by Roman authorities. Anyone who the Romans decided fit that description, they executed. 100s of people were crucified, and I have no reason to think Jesus wasn’t also.
As I’ve said in a previous comment (see post about Judas) I think that Jesus made a deal with the authorities, giving himself up in return for them sparing the lives of his disciples. (“Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”) That’s why he was so angry at Peter for attacking the Roman guard. Jesus’ fate was sealed at that point, as they had him in custody. If Peter had started a violent conflict and given the guards reason to kill the disciples right then and there, Jesus’ incredible act of self-sacrifice would go to no gain at all.
Sometimes people survived crucifixion, and Jesus may have been one of them. There are other stories of that time, of people who were “dead” coming out of their caves. This isn’t surprising. As recently as 100 years ago, people were greatly afraid of being buried alive (ref. Fear: A Cultural History by Joanna Bourke), and excavations of graves showed that it happened regularly. The insides of coffins would be clawed to shreds. People devised systems of bells above-ground attached to a cord that went down into the coffin, so they could pull the cord and ring the bell if they woke up. The difference, when you’re laid in a cave, is that you can just stand up and walk out.
Having been crucified once and being seriously not anxious to do it again, once he was sufficiently healed, Jesus left the Roman empire – which maybe explains rumors of him spending time in India. Perhaps he went to the Bene Israel community and lived in obscurity there, for his protection. He may have even intended to come back to Israel – he said several times to his disciples that he was coming back – but clearly that never happened. Once the Romans destroyed the temple and the disapora began in 70 CE, there would have been no point in going back.
Usually I wouldn’t just pick one point to question, but my computer is overheating and I need to go to sleep.
“He may have even intended to come back to Israel – he said several times to his disciples that he was coming back – but clearly that never happened.”
The most reliable historical documents state that he did go back to his disciples. Where are you drawing your conclusion for him not going back?
Sorry: I meant he went back to them after reviving, and before departing Israel. After the point in the story where he “ascended into Heaven” (or left the Roman Empire), he did not come back.
That’s okay. What is your evidence and argument for Jesus not dying after being beaten and crucified and then waking up and being able to move the stone that was in front of his grave?
Oops, sorry, that was me that posted the last comment. I thought I was logged out of James’ profile.
Neither one of us has evidence for our interpretation. What I wrote simply seems to me to be more plausible than that he was actually dead and came back to life. People did not always die after crucifixion, and generally were left hanging longer than Jesus was – he was taken down “hurriedly” to be entombed prior to the Sabbath. People were not good at being able to tell whether someone was actually dead even 100 years ago, so they certainly weren’t any better at it 2,000 years ago. So, it just seems possible to me that he wasn’t actually dead when they got him down from the cross, but they thought he was.
I made a seperate post for the subject we are on. I figured it could be a lasting conversation. If you would like to re-comment some of your thoughts that I did not address, please do.
http://jamespruch.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/guest-post-jordan-reply-to-a-friend-on-the-evidence-of-jesus-death/