Violence Against Women

Joan Smith, reacting to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement that sharia courts could rule on family issues in England, said that British women are already suffering because Islamic law. She also said: “Only someone as out of touch with modern Britain as the Archbishop of Canterbury could possibly think otherwise, or line up so willingly with the forces of reaction. Just because someone looks like an Old Testament prophet, he doesn't have to think and speak like one as well.”

In a very eye-opening article, Smith presents several cases of violence against women in England because of religious laws. Because Smith’s argument is important to understand the reason the Archbishop of Canterbury does not speak with prophetic voice, I have reprinted an excerpt of Smith’s article as it appears in The Independent:

There are moments when public debate in Britain appears to take place in a vacuum. As the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a convincing impression yesterday of a man suffering the torments of the Inquisition, the debate was moving away from his actual observations about Islamic law, sharia, to the question of his fitness (or otherwise) to hold his office. Rowan Williams claimed that his remarks about the unavoidability of adopting some aspects of sharia in this country had been misunderstood, prompting an interesting response from his critics: the cleric was a brilliant man, they said, but his utterances were simply too opaque for hoi polloi (especially the media) to comprehend. This prompts an obvious question – if no one understands what the Archbishop is saying, how do they know how intelligent he is? – but it also diverted attention from something much more important. Williams's clarification of his remarks seemed to suggest that he wasn't calling for a parallel legal system for Muslims, more a recognition of something that is already happening. Yet there has been a strange reluctance to ask a real expert who has seen the way sharia operates in this country: someone like Rahni Binjie, project manager of Roshni Asian Women's Aid in Nottingham.

I urge you to read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

After you read the article in its entirety, you will understand the meaning of Smith’s words: “Only someone as out of touch with modern Britain as the Archbishop of Canterbury could possibly think otherwise, or line up so willingly with the forces of reaction. Just because someone looks like an Old Testament prophet, he doesn't have to think and speak like one as well.”

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Abuse, Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, Sharia Law, Women

The Complementarian-Egalitarian Divide

David Gushee, the Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, wrote an article for the Associated Baptist Press dealing with issues faced by those who take an complementarian position on the gender issue. He wrote:

I am convinced that all positions of service and leadership in the life of the local church should be open to women or men based entirely on calling and gifts -- an egalitarian view. But in this column I am not going to rehearse the arguments for or against this view.

Instead, motivated by my experiences, I want to ask complementarians -- those who believe that the role of women complements, but is not the same as, the role

Gushee asks four questions of those who take the complementarian view:

1. Are you successfully communicating to young men the conviction that a complementarian perspective must elevate rather than diminish the dignity of women, and therefore inculcating a moral commitment on their part to act accordingly?

2. Are you absolutely clear on which positions of Christian service (you believe) are barred to women?

3. Once you have determined what positions of Christian service are barred to women, you have therefore also determined which positions are permitted. Are you active in encouraging women to pursue the positions that are permitted?

4. When women occupy positions of church leadership that parallel those of men, are their positions named equally and are the individuals involved treated equally?

Read Gushee’s rationale for the four questions by visiting the web page of the Associated Baptist Press.

These are important questions. In the article, Gushee expands the intent of his questions and provides a rationale for the four questions. I agree with his views and believe that these questions expose a fundamental weakness in the complementarian view.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Complementarian View, Egalitarian View, Subordination, Women