Central Oregon Emergent Cohort

One of my long-time-ago Bethel College professors, Jenelle Williams Paris (also community participant at Solomon’s Porch) left a wonderful post on her blog today in regards to women in ministry and the reality of patriarchy in our world. She is probably one of my favorite bloggers on my blog subscriptions. Here’s the LINK to the whole article.

I’ve wondered this year whether or not I’m becoming a crone. I’ve carried patriarchy around for years, dealing with it when it cries, patting it to sleep, even feeding it when absolutely necessary. For a number of reasons, mostly related to aging, I’m losing patience. “Grow up already and stop sucking me dry!”, is what I want to say to patriarchy. (Or is that what I want to say to my kids…like I said, I’m on unsteady footing here.) For instance, in the comments section of “Cacklings of an Emerging Crone,” I felt impatient when one person took the multi-stranded, interesting conversation back to the most tedious starting point imaginable. Not that Scripture is tedious, but approaching it with that question framed that way is. At least to me. At least right now.

Honestly, my vision of cronehood pretty much derives from Scripture. “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.” Where in our Christian world would such a woman be praised, who lives and moves from her own God-created center? Where would men honor women as equals, even when those women challenge them, create discomfort, suggest new processes, and cast new visions? Where would men value old crones as much as young princesses? May we females be Proverbs 31 women, and may men and women together shape communities in which such women are praised.

I’d like to develop a few posts here that keep this conversation going. Rather than continue banging the theology drum, why not consider practice? Even though many (most?) in the young Reformed crowd would deny pastoral leadership or eldership to women, many (most?) men in that movement want to work harmoniously with women in other roles. In emergent and other woman-affirming movements and organizations, men also want to work well with women and are often flummoxed when their well-intentioned efforts backfire.