ReThink Humanity

 D. Sharon Pruitt via Compfight

When we wrote the ReKnew Manifesto, one of the issues we were passionate about was helping people rethink gender issues within the church. Part of the Manifesto reads:

Against the long-standing patriarchal mindset of the Church tradition, ReKnew is passionate about encouraging husbands and wives to assume an egalitarian mindset in their marriages, and passionate about urging local Church communities to empower women to serve in any leadership capacity for which they are gifted and called to serve.

Because of this, we’re really thrilled that Rachel Held Evans is doing a series called “Submit to One Another: Christ and the Household Codes”. The Household Codes are a set of Scriptures that have traditionally been used to advocate for a hierarchical family structure with husbands at the top of the pyramid (complementarianism) versus a family structure based upon mutual submission (egalitarianism). You should definitely check this series out!

Here’s a little selection from a post in the series entitled “Four Interpretive Pitfalls Around the New Testament Household Codes”:

From this perspective, there is much we can learn from the household codes about confronting our own privilege, keeping whatever power we may have in check, responding to our feelings of powerlessness, practicing mutual submission in our marriages, and imitating Christ in all of our interpersonal relationships. We apply the Household Codes most faithfully to our own lives, not when we use them to reinforce power structures and hierarchy, but when we use them to break those power structures down at the foot of the cross. 

We hope you’ll read the whole blog post when you get some time. Also, don’t forget to check out the second installment in the series that Rachel posted today. It’s a creative take on Colossians that explores how this letter must have sounded to the first readers. Amazing.