#14-5: Gender & Authority - A Manifesto of Liberty and Responsibility in the Christian Home School Movement
Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>
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The Hope
Chest with Virginia Knowles
#14-5: Gender & Authority -
A Manifesto
of Liberty and Responsibility
July
28, 2011
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Dear friends,
Welcome to the July edition of the Hope Chest. This has been a very challenging issue for me to write, reflecting many changes in my thinking over the years as I have observed the home schooling movement. I hope it will be a blessing to you.
All of the articles in this issue are also on my blog http://www.comewearymoms.blogspot.com. If you would like to respond to any of them, I will provide links at the top of each article, and at the bottom of the e-mail so you can leave a comment on the blog. You can also e-mail me! I would also appreciate it if you would forward this e-magazine to your friends or link the individual articles on Facebook.
A little more intro to this issue, especially for those who don't know me...
As most of you know, I am
a home schooling mom of 10 children, ages (almost) 6 to 24. My
oldest daughter is married with a one year old son and expecting her second
baby in February; she is a writer for Wycliffe Bible Translators. To care for her son, she works from home two days a week, splits shifts with her husband the other three days, and gets a little extra help from me and a family friend. My second daughter works full time in an office and is engaged to be married this fall; she and her fiance have both been active in mission trips to Bolivia.
My third daughter starts nursing school at UCF next month. My fourth daughter is a Disney World
photographer and a student at Valencia Community College. Both my third and fourth daughters spend three months in Italy earlier this year helping missionaries with outreach through teaching English in the community. My fifth daughter, Lydia, returns to public
high school for her junior year this fall; she had a very successful and happy year there. The younger five children, in first through ninth grades, will continue
in our home school; this year we are rejoining the Providence co-op after a
year off and I will be teaching 7th-8th grade English (with an strong emphasis on Bible and missions) as
I have in the past. I have been home schooling my children for about
20 years, and learning about it for 25.
That's because shortly after Thad and I
married in the mid 1980’s, we moved to Maryland, where we joined a conservative
yet contemporary church that was filled with large home schooling
families. One of my earliest mentors in marriage and motherhood was
a sweet lady named Vickie Botkin, whose husband was our home group leader. Vickie
taught me how to make log cabin quilts in her sewing room. She continually
modeled a heart of simplicity and contentment to me. She is a
lot more well known now than then. Victoria (as she is now called) is the
wife of Geoff Botkin, and mother of seven young adult children. The
books, audios and DVDs that the Botkin family produces are published by Vision
Forum. Probably the best known of these are the Elizabeth and Anna
Sophia Botkin’s book So Much More and their DVD Return
of the Daughters. Back then, one of the books that either
Vickie or of our friends introduced me to was The Way Home by
Mary Pride. Then I read the sequel All the Way Home when
it came out in 1989. For about a decade, I subscribed to and
wrote articles for Pride’s magazines HELP, Big Happy Family, and Practical Home
Schooling. About 20 years ago, I also started subscribing to Above
Rubies Magazine by Nancy Campbell. I have attended several three or
four of her retreats (and helped organize one of them), written many articles
for her magazine, and have had many personal conversations with her either
while driving her to the airport or when she would call me on the phone with
her delightful New Zealand accent. All this to say, I was
quickly and deeply drawn into the “full quiver” (large family) and home
schooling lifestyle that my new friends and Mary Pride’s and Nancy Campbell’s
books and magazines espoused. I don’t regret that at all. I
wouldn’t trade any one of my 10 kids for anything! And I love home
schooling them! I was still in my twenties when Mary officially started kindergarten and I’ll be nearly 60 when Melody graduates from high school. That’s
quite an investment in my own family, but I have also written home schooling
books and published an e-magazine for the past 13 years. I’m in deep
and I’m in for the long haul. My husband Thad is also very involved in our children's educations through working with me on curriculum planning and record keeping, taking kids on field trips, chauffeuring them to classes, working out dual enrollment in college, encouraging me to keep going strong, and of course, paying $$$ for everything! With the older ones who are beyond home schooling, he helps coordinate college and scholarship applications, overseas travel arrangements, car purchase and maintenance, wedding plans, financial planning and other adult life skills. 🙂 Kudos, Thad! You are quite the veteran dad!
But back to the theme of this month's e-magazine... As the years have rolled
by and I have closely observed the full quiver / home schooling movement and
where it’s gone, I’ve seen some disturbing out workings in certain segments of
it, especially relating to gender and authority. Anything good can
be distorted, sometimes very badly. The ones who seem to suffer most
are the moms and the daughters. I’m certainly not the only one who
has taken notice, hence the Manifesto and three book reviews I will share in
this issue. A little later, in the
second review, I will share more on why I wrote this blog series.
A Manifesto of
Liberty and Responsibility in Christian Families
by Virginia
Knowles
A young woman should be given the opportunities to obtain marketable job skills and college education so that she can support herself during her years of singleness or assist her husband in providing income for the family as may be necessary. A young man, likewise, should become proficient enough in household tasks so that he can run his own home during his years of singleness, and assist his wife in this as may be necessary. Parents launch both their sons and daughters toward adulthood by encouraging a responsive personal relationship with God, teaching practical life skills, releasing them to learn from other mentors and teachers, and equipping them to make their own reasonable choices.
Marriage is to be entered into by two spiritually and emotionally responsible adults, and is to be based on mutual respect, affection, and attraction. During the years before marriage, it is wise for young people to seek the guidance and support of their parents and other trustworthy counselors. However, the final decisions must be made by the people who are planning to get married. If they haven’t established enough healthy independence to do that, then they aren’t sufficiently prepared to be married at all. After a couple marries, there needs to be an appropriate “leaving and cleaving” from their parents so that the new family can be established. While new couples are wise to ask for advice, their parents should not pressure married children to conform to their own expectations.
Each parent is responsible before God for the decisions they make on behalf of their own children. We are called to study the whole counsel of Scripture, devote ourselves to prayer, and listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit for our families. Each family is different, so we must grant one another the liberty to make decisions as seems best, within the reasonable limits of law.
"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21
Submission Is
Not Silence by Elisabeth Julin (A Review)
My ears perked up when my friend Tonya Travelstead told
me about a blog written by her friend Lizzie. On our early morning
walks, we had been discussing the topic of how many in the home school movement
think and speak about gender and authority. She knows that I have done a
lot of research into the patriarchy movement that goes way beyond the normal,
Biblical “men should lovingly lead their families” into an unhealthy
authoritarian position. So, was there really a blog for wives called
“Submission is Not Silence”? Sounded interesting!
What is funny is that I
didn’t realize I had already met Lizzie the previous year at a reunion for
members of a church we both attended long ago. I had even taken this picture
of Lizzie (with her husband Eric in the background) and had posted it
on Facebook – without a tag because I couldn’t remember their names. And
that picture, which I stumbled on later, is actually how I eventually realized
the connection. I also went to a different church with her brother Tim for a while in
the late 1990's, and met her sister Connie about 27 years ago, too.
And I still have not told you about the book, Submission Is Not Silence: Boldness
from a Quiet Spirit, have I? Well, I always like
to give the back story. Long story made even longer, I started
reading Lizzie’s blog and began corresponding with her. When she
finally published the same-named book, she graciously sent me a copy!
Now for Lizzie’s back story! If you’ve ever read a Vision
Forum catalog, you may have seen a book called Ten P’s in a Pod by
Lizzie’s brother Arnold Pent. (Just for the record: I am not a
fan of Vision Forum nor its founder Doug Phillips, and he probably wouldn't
like me much either, but that is another story.) Their father, Dr. Pent,
was a traveling evangelist, and the family traveled with him giving concerts
and Scripture memory recitations all around the country. The eight
children, of whom Lizzie was the fourth, were home schooled on the road.
Raised in this very conservative family, they were taught that good Christian
women were to be so quiet-spirited that they never fully expressed their
opinions or desires or especially their disagreements to their husbands. That
was considered being unsubmissive. When Lizzie married Eric a week before her
30th birthday, that is the model of communication that she took
with her. Eric, who had not been raised this way, did not understand why
she was being so silent. Lizzie, full of repressed feelings and emotions,
resented Eric for not instinctively knowing what was bothering her. It
nearly destroyed their marriage. Let Lizzie tell a bit of what saved
them…
“Fifteen
years into our marriage, I had a nagging fear that Eric would leave if I ever
countered his strong opinions. As it turned out, I was the one who left
him for four days. Taking Isaiah 58 in my head, I drove north to the
hometown of friends to quietly pray for my marriage. When I returned,
Eric and I looked at each other soberly over coffee in a downtown
restaurant. This was when I had my epiphany. Our failures were
destroying what we wanted more than anything else, which was a loving, peaceful
relationship. After that day of enlightenment, I began to understand my
true value to him. I saw his good intentions, commitment to God,
character, and determination to stay in our marriage. “Even if you leave, I
will stay committed to the marriage and the children,” he told me.
I
thought love had died in me, but it soon resonated again. The crises in
our marriage accomplished what my silence never could have. I began this
journey of many years trying to find wholeness. Our marriage then became
more like a game than a war. How simple my part became, and how well it
fit, like a perfectly crafted piece of a puzzle among the other pieces of my
life; my relationship with God, my husband, and our children.”
What Lizzie learned is that a woman needs to offer her whole
self to her husband: all her gifts, her thoughts, her feelings, her
opinions. He needs her female perspective. Marriages thrive with
mutual respect, not a rigid hierarchy. As she wrote later in the
book:
“A
free, wise, strong female comes up with a bold plan as she seeks the welfare of
her husband, her children, and herself. She is what every man longs for
(even when he doesn’t know it). He will love ever more fervently the
woman who has a mind of her own, who gives to him from her own initiative and
female genre of wisdom, and who loves him back because she is free and chooses
to. Love that is coerced is not real, and neither is submission that is
coerced. Personal dominance, dictatorships in marriage and other forms of
mind control that are camouflaged by religion are all unbiblical. No
religion or denomination has permission from Scripture to control a
woman. Some try hard, but they have to violate Scripture in the
process. The biblical truth is that no human being is justified coming
between you and God. In the end of time, when it is your turn to stand
before God, you will face Him alone.
Marriage
is an institution created by God to be the very foundation of the happiness and
personal growth of a man and woman. United to “the head,” she as the
“body” builds her house. She is his closest confidante, counselor and
friend. Women who fulfill their key roles on the stage of life will move
an entire culture closer to God.”
Reading this book, which is 275 pages long, I was at first put
off a little by the repetition. It seemed like I was reading the same
concepts over and over again. Then I realized that this was actually a
(perhaps unintended) strength of the book. Many women reading it have
been beaten down emotionally in their marriages and need this constant stream of
affirmation about their significance. Just like a flower needs
watering day after day, some women need to read these concepts over and over to
counter the skewed ideas about “Biblical womanhood” that they may have been
told all along.
Submission Is Not Silence isn’t a difficult
book to read; it is more like a warm, friendly chat over coffee with a wise
older Titus 2 mentor. She understands the realities and challenges
because she has lived through them. Lizzie and Eric, the parents of three
grown sons, have now been married for over 37 years -- and they are best
friends! Wow! In this day and age, that’s quite something!
I highly recommend this book! Read a little each day and
be blessed!
To give
you a taste for what you’ll see, the chapter titles are:
- Remember Who You Are! In God’s Image, Yet Unique
- A Resemblance of the Holy Spirit: Assuming Your Powerful,
Positive Role - The Science of You: Knowledge is Power
- God Honors You: The Bible Speaking Directly to You
- Totally Unique: Created for Such a Time as This
- Equal Opposites: Both in the Image of God
- A Calling: Thriving in Your Dominion
- Keep Your Heart There: The Center of Every Universe
- Counterparts: A “Threefold Cord”’
- On Stage: The Female Lead
- The Power of Influence: To the Ends of the Earth
- The Head: His Logic and Strength on Your Side
- The Race: Finishing the Course
Take a peek at the Submission Is Not Silence blog, web site, and Facebook page. Her first post on the blog is one of my favorites: Ponder It, Then
Speak the Truth in Love.
You can order the book, in print or digital version, here: http://submissionisnotsilence.com/book/
You may also wish to read:
When Sparrows
Fall by Meg Moseley (A Review)
I am jealous. I can’t write long fiction. Sure, I’ve
written two non-fiction books, but the most fiction I can concoct is a short
story. It boggles me how anyone can craft an entire novel out of a story,
weaving the plot in and out, this way and that. It's like creating ex
nihilo, out of nothing. How can they take a twisted and tragic tale
and turn it on its tail into redemption and hope? How can they get me to
suck in my breath like that, or coax my tears to dribble down? And keep
doing it for 337 pages? I just can’t do it. Meg Moseley
can. And Meg Moseley is now the object of my envy.
Actually, I was guilty of coveting before I even read Meg
Moseley’s novel When Sparrows
Fall. It was on my wish list, waiting for me to buy
it, waiting for some extra book money. My sister, well, she already had
it on her Nook. Hmmph. But my sister is
kind, and decided to buy me a copy, too, because she believes in its message
and wanted to share it with me. We’re very different, but in this we are
alike. Sisters are like that sometimes. Oh, and I should say my
sister is an aspiring novel writer, too, with a few full length manuscripts to
her credit. Pffft. I can’t do it. I’ll stick to
non-fiction. Like this little book review.
By now you’re wondering when I’ll actually tell you more about
Meg’s book, other than to hint about tragedy and redemption. We’re
getting there, honey! Hang on!
Not all of us can write novels, but we each have a story.
Miranda, the protagonist of When Sparrows
Fall, certainly has one, but she’s not owning up to all
of it. Maybe that’s because she doesn’t feel she even owns her own
life. In her adult years, her decisions have all been made for her
either by her late husband or her pastor, both domineering men who use fear and
legalistic religion to control others. The outside world has always been
painted as ungodly and dangerous, so her family has lived in near isolation,
like birds in a glass cage. Now she’s a widow left with six young
children, a log cabin in the woods, archaic books for home schooling, and her
faithful old camera. She wants to rebuild her life, but where to
start? And what happens when she suddenly can’t do anything for her
children or herself, and she has to depend on the kindness of a stranger?
How can she trust this half-brother-in-law Jack Hanford, whom she has only met
once and whose life is so worldly compared to her own? How can she
counter the spiritual abuse of Mason Chandler? And how can she keep her
secrets buried, her children protected, her sanity intact?
This is not just the story of Miranda. It is the story of
countless hidden women and children who are held in spiritual and emotional
bondage by those who claim to have their best interests at heart. This is
the story of coming into one’s own, of finding the life of liberty, truth,
grace, beauty, and love that we are all meant to enjoy. That is a story
we all share.
God sees when sparrows fall. And in this case, he gently
picks one up, puts a song in its heart, touches its wings with strength, and
releases it into the glories of flight.
~*~*~
Who is Meg Moseley? You can read more about her at her web
site, http://www.megmoseley.com/ and
her blog, http://megmoseley.wordpress.com/,but
for starters, she was a home school mom for over 20 years. She has three
grown children and lives in Georgia. She once worked in a candle factory.
She rides motorcycles. That’s another thing I don’t do, but I don’t envy
that one. Meg wants you to understand the importance of
fairy tales in a child’s life. And she wants you to think deeply
enough to care about women who are oppressed in the name of religion. If
you’re of the mind to share books and thoughts with ones you love, Meg included
a Reader’s Guide of 14 thought-provoking questions at the end. My
question for you fellow mommies is, “Who you can reach out to with a helping
hand and words of truth and grace?” Because sometimes, you’re the one he uses
to tend to his wee sparrows.
~*~*~
“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them
is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Luke
12:6-7
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! My
soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my
flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a
home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her
young— a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed
are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you. Selah Blessed
are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on
pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a
place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from
strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.” Psalm
84:1-7
You might also like to read my 2008 blog post, His Eye is on
the Sparrow. It’s not fiction, but it is
my story of a little bird. Oh, and some music, too: a contemporary
rendition by CeCe Winans and Lauryn Hill of the grand old spiritual “His Eye is
on the Sparrow.” Go ahead! Click it!
This review
of When Sparrows
Fall is part
of my series
on gender and authority. Why am I
writing this series? The theme of emotional, spiritual and physical abuse
has ranked really high on my radar in the past few years. I wish I could
say this is just because I read a lot, but unfortunately, I have known far too
many dear people who are painfully affected by these problems in their own
homes and churches. Their stories haunt me. At times, there is really not
much I can do for them but to encourage them, offer resources, and pray.
But there is something more I can do to keep it from happening to other
families. I can write. Maybe not fiction, but I can write! So
I have joined a growing cadre of bloggers who are addressing this issue,
especially as it relates to home schooling, parenting, marriage, and
church. I have written a number of articles touching lightly on aspects
of these subjects, such as Help for Hurting
Marriages. However, my first major direct foray into this realm was
my article Child Discipline or
Child Abuse? which I wrote last
year after Lydia Schatz, an adopted child, was beat to death by her home
schooling parents who had been reading child discipline books by Michael
Pearl. That post received thousands of page hits in the first few weeks,
and nearly 18 months later it is still getting daily visitors. However,
just this past week, it was time for another heart-rending post, this time
about Sovereign Grace Ministries, our former church denomination, in the wake
of its current turmoil about abuse of authority. As home school parents, you may be interested
in this because Josh Harris, son of Gregg and brother of Alex and Brett, is a
senior pastor at SGM’s flagship congregation, Covenant Life Church. You
can read my first blog post here: My Thoughts on
CJ Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries. It has has received thousands of
visitors from all over the world. It’s been a really long
and wearying two weeks for me, rethinking and responding and rewriting.
Much praying, too. I posted the sequel a week later here: My Recommendations
for CJ Mahaney and SGM (From the Cheap Seats!) Then, remembering the good aspects of our former church, I wrote Ten Things I
Appreciate About Metro Life Church.
Please pray for the
writers and speakers who are addressing abuse issues wherever they are found.
I can’t go into all the details of the challenges we face, but this
is a critical time for us. We are just ordinary people, seeking to be
used by God “for such as time as this.”
Quivering
Daughters by Hilary McFarland (A Review)
The quickest way to introduce the book, Quivering
Daughters – Hope and Healing for the Daughters of Patriarchy by
Hilary McFarland, is to give you a paragraph from the back cover: “Homeschooling.
Large families. Biblical womanhood. Quiverfull. The
Christian partriarchy movement promises parents a legacy of godly children – if
they adhere to specific Biblical principles. But what happens when
families who abandon “the world” for ”the Biblical home” leave hearts behind,
too? For many wives and daughters, the Christian home is not always
a safe place. Scripture is used to manipulate. God is
used as a weapon. And through spiritual and emotional abuse, women
who become “the least of these” within Biblical patriarchy experience deep
wounds that only God can heal… Written by the firstborn in a homeschooling
family of eleven children,Quivering Daughters – Hope
and Healing for the Daughters of Patriarchy biblically examines
the fruits of authoritarian, religious families and shows women the real way
home – to the grace, heart, and love of God.”
It’s not a polished or
tightly edited book, and I didn’t necessarily agree with everything Hilary had
to say, but the remembrances and insights in it are both profound and heart
rending. And yes, I’ve seen “in real life” among my own
acquaintances what she has recounted on the pages of this book. The
gist of it is that full quiver and/or home schooling both attract, enable, and
even create parents who have twisted views on family dynamics, roles, and
authority. Under the guise of “living by Scripture” the
lifestyle becomes a means of very unscriptural control and abuse.
Women (wives and growing
daughters) can become doormats who have no rights, no opinions, no identities,
no voices of their own. As just one example, girls in these
families are often denied the opportunity to obtain a proper education and
marketable job skills under the assumption (and often demand) that
they go straight from being a completely dependent daughter to a being a completely
dependent (young) wife and mother. Their days are filled with an inequitable share
of household (and often old-fashioned labor-intensive homestead) chores and
taking care of a steady stream of younger siblings and their (often) pregnant
mother. They are not given sufficient time to rest, to think, or to
develop their own gifts and talents. If they object to this, they
are labeled as rebellious, with even stricter measures put in place to ensure
conformity. In some cases, they are thrown out of the family home
and banned from future contact so that they won’t “pollute” younger siblings
with their anarchist ideas. Young women are sometimes pressured into
marrying “like minded” young men after their fathers arrange tightly controlled
courtships or betrothals. The families are often isolated
geographically and technologically from the larger world, so there is little
support when they are struggling and little outside perspective to remind them
that THIS IS NOT NORMAL even when they are being told by others in their
religious circles that it is.
Even their churches can
play into the dysfunction by excusing, denying, condoning, hiding, and/or
blaming the victim, for serious cases of domestic violence and even sexual
abuse within the home. Additionally, churches can add to the burden
by imposing rigid lifestyle rules that are manmade but that claim to be
mandates from God for godly living. Members are shamed and manipulated if
they do not fully comply. So there is a complicating dynamic of
spiritual abuse in the church as well as in the family.
What a contrast from the
liberty, grace and joy that we are supposed to find in Jesus Christ! No
wonder so many young people are bolting away, leaving behind not only the
damaging aspects of their religious upbringing, but their faith in God at
all. A quick look on the Internet will yield plenty of blogs by home
schooled young adults and disenchanted home school moms to prove it. I
am not surprised. If an earthly father is despotic and unbalanced,
it is such a hindrance to trusting their heavenly Father. If the
Bible is used to demean and degrade and bind, rather than to nurture and
liberate and equip, why would they want to believe it? This is a
tragedy. The original goal of raising a family to glorify God
becomes a bitter mockery.
Please don’t hear what I
am not saying. I don’t think it’s wrong for daughters to help out in
a family in appropriate ways. Sometimes this will be more intense
for a short season of time, but it should not consume their whole lives and
stunt their futures. And certainly husbands and fathers bear a
responsibility of leadership and protection for their families. But
they should not function as family dictators, expecting unquestioning obedience
and subservience, and exerting control with harshness. The
example that Jesus lived out for us is to lead by laying down our own lives in
humble service. I wish I could tell you everything I learned from
Hilary’s book, but those are a few of the concepts she covers. She
shares stories from her own life, as well as from other young women. She
quotes from research and books on spiritual and emotional abuse in churches and
families, and abundantly laces her paragraphs with relevant passages from the
Bible. I love some of her charts, such as the difference between
authoritative parenting and authoritarian parenting. Even though she
is obviously upset about the damage done in families like the one in which she
was raised, she does not come across as bitter and she is not encouraging other
young women to rebel or reject their families. Her goal is to bring
perspective and healing, and the knowledge that they are not alone and that
something can be done. Comfort and empowerment abound in this
book.
As a mother of a large
family, I was convicted by much of what Hilary McFarland. I have
apologized many times to my daughters for placing an unnecessary burden on them
for so many years, and, for one season of their lives, for attempting to impose
particularly legalistic and self-righteous standards on them. We
live and learn, don’t we? Hopefully, books like Hilary’s can prevent
many families from even “going there” in the first place, and can help others
to repent and change.
Want to explore more?
Hilary’s blog: http://www.quiveringdaughters.com
New to QD? Start
here! http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/p/new-start-here.html
Other reviews: http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/p/what-others-are-saying-about-quivering.html
Read the first chapter of
the book: http://www.quiveringdaughters.com/p/read-excerpt.html
My related blog post: A Word About Our
Children’s Future Families
And a radio edition of a
tragic story by a daughter who lived in an extreme case of abuse by a home
schooling father: Unshackled – The
Story of Elishaba Speckles
~*~*~
Phew, I
am mentally exhausted putting all of this together, even though it was written
over a period of months!
I have compiled a list of Web Links about Parenting with Grace Instead of Authoritarian Legalism. I will send these out in a separate e-mail as well.
There
is much more that I would like to say related to these topics, but I will have
to keep thinking and praying and write more in the future. I would especially like to delve into some more
practical solutions for some of the problems I addressed in this issue. What do you think needs to happen? Help me out here!
I also plan to review the book Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel, which is not specifically about gender and
authority, but still has much to say. Later
on, as I have time, I hope to write reviews of When
Life and Beliefs Collide: How Knowing God Makes a Difference (my
subtitle for it would be, “Why Women Should Study Theology for Themselves”) and Half
the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women by Carolyn Custis James.
Other posts on my blogs!
- A Picnic on the Go, Flower Girl Dresses and Conversations
Along the Way - Friday Favorites #11: Four Weeks Worth
- A Spiritual Warfare Prayer
- On Mommy Blogging: Image, Identity, Authenticity and
Freedom - Weekend Gratitude: Lord, Have Mercy!
- Weekend Gratitude In Advance: Anticipating Blessings
Manifesto of Liberty and Responsibility in Christian Families
Submission Is Not Silence by Elisabeth Julin (A Review)
When Sparrows Fall by Meg Moseley (A Review)
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