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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Keely Writes:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>I am not a "Biblical utilitarian," that is,
someone who wants to conform the Bible to a particular view of culture or
practice in the desperate -- and vain -- hope that more souls will be
won. The truth of Scripture will, I believe, not only stand on its own
virtue but is also a far more effective means of societal and individual
transformation than my desperate attempts to mold it into something that
seemingly would help the process along.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Sharing Keely’s premises, I’m content exploring this new
argument against Christianity. This is kind of like a suped up, more
focused Problem of Evil argument, and I invite our fellow atheists to the
discussion. If some of the fundamental assertions in the New Testament
with respect to the nature of the Godhead and the nature of the gospel offend
our most basic, a priori moral judgments about submission, then we would know
that the God of the New Testament gospel is some kind of patriarchical
creep. God cannot be the source and standard of all that is good and
lovely while also explicitly commanding women, for the purposes of illustrating
the nature of the gospel itself, to live in precisely the way we do not think
women ought to live. Andreas’ personal distinction between ethics and
reality will be of no use to the Christian when confronted with this beast of
an argument. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I think these are the three options for us:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>1: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Merely proposing that there is a unique kind of
submission exhibited by only women as directed to only their own husbands
within the institution of marriage does not put us in a position of embracing
the oppressive and ugly aspects of traditional patriarchy. My muscles are
bigger than my wives.’ My wife is better at bearing children than
me. And there is a form of feminine submission (spiritually and biologically
based) that I’m not encouraged to exhibit the way my wife is – we
can say “big deal” to all three of these possibilities.
Absolute ‘equality’ with respect to every possible attribute need
not be a fundamental moral notion for the social liberal. Therefore the
New Testament commands for women to submit to their husbands in a way their
husbands are not commanded to submit to them do not offer an argument against
the truth of Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>2: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The unique kind of submission of a woman toward her
husband as found in the New Testament really is not sufficiently different
enough from the patriarchical creepiness that we have gladly freed ourselves
from. Any kind of unique form of submission that might be required of a
wife that would not be required of a husband – at least to the same
extent – is by definition the partaking in an institution of
oppression. Therefore, Christianity cannot be true; God explicitly
commands women to partake in activity we know to be morally wrong, hurtful, and
God even explains that this illustrates the very nature of the gospel in doing
so. So much for Christianity. We had better move on to something a
bit more liberal: at the very least something more liberal than Keely’s
exegetical and doctrinal conservatism. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>3:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The New Testament does not encourage any kind of
unique submission of a woman toward her husband. The pursued/pursuer
construct is not exhibited and fostered by the New Testament teaching; and
women are not understood to have any kind of unique roles that might limit them
in any way from experiencing full equality with men on every level and in every
way – outside of the biological slavery of having weaker bodies,
menstruation, and the possibility of being chained to a household bed via
pregnancy and nursing. What we have come to believe in the most liberal
and secular areas of society, fostered since the enlightenment progressively by
those who spurned the Christian faith, really is in hind site the teaching of
Jesus and Paul. So the growth in our moral intuition independent from
religion, and because of our rejection of it, ends up confirming the truth of
Christianity. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I choose the first option. I’m hoping <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Wayne</st1:City></st1:place> chooses the second option; and I
imagine Keely embraces at least something like the third option. Perhaps Joe
will propose a fourth option : -)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Yes? No?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Thanks<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Michael Metzler <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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