Comments moderated again

I sometimes read blogs like SoloFemininity. This post reflected information that I had often been told by people who work with World Vision but I hadn't seen it in print. Carolyn cited this,

Seven out of ten of the world's hungry are women.
- Nearly half of all girls born in the 50 least developed countries will never attend school, sentencing them to a life of poverty and disease.
- Due to poverty, illiteracy, and the denial of decision-making power, women are becoming infected with HIV faster than men in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
- Every six seconds a girl under five dies of preventable causes.
- Of the 800 million who lack basic work skills to rise out of poverty, two-thirds are female.

I appreciate Carolyn's willingness to post this information without editing it. However, when I left a short comment to the effect that I had posted on my own blog on this topic, she moderated out my comment. I wrote,

Hi Carolyn,
>
> I have linked to your post on my blog.

Suzanne
In my post I wrote,

It seems to me that along with sending pharmaceutical drugs, North America should model an appropriate egalitarian stance on male-female relations. Christians should be ahead of the curve on this. Some are, and some aren't.

If we know to do good and don't do it, then we are contributing to the problem. We know that we should teach egalitarian values. If we don't do it, we are guilty - we become part of the problem.


So then, if you know the good you ought to do and don't do it, you sin. James 4:7

All I can say is that those who feel that it is misguided for women to have equal prominence and representation, and to make their own decisions, should be very happy with this World Vision report.

All those who voted that women should obey their husbands should have their heart warmed by these statistics.

But a Better Bible would address women and give them equal status with men. It would be careful to address men and women each and every time the Greek refers to men and women. It would say "human" when the Greek or Hebrew says "human". It would not insert things that are not there which give the impression that women must be under their husband's authority.

How hard would it be to produce a Bible that addresses all the "children of God" as equals instead of only the sons?

You can respond however you like. We don't moderate comments.

PS This note is for Lingamish. The Contemporary English Version, CEV, is IMO an a suitable Bible for use in mission work. I haven't given it that much attention probably because it is so uncontroversial. I want to congratulate Lingamish for standing staunchly by his choice Bible. Good for you!

Update: I can see how some might complain about this post. However, I have had two private emails this morning thanking me for it. I want to be very clear that I do not attribute the extreme positions of the "male authority" teaching to complementarians. That is not at all true and I know it. I believe there is a separate cult like group who teach patricentric decision-making and this is damaging women.

I believe that those who actively teach male authority and male-lead decision-making need to take a long hard look at these statistics as well as the work of Lundy Bancroft, who after 15 years working in the court system in the US, identifies a sense of male entitlement as a root cause of abuse. I mean entitlement to make decisions. Reflect on the gross errors made by men, which easily puts them on the same level as women, such as we are. Let's just admit that men are not in any way less vulnerable to human error than women. Let's just admit that women are more likely to be able to identify their own basic needs than the person beside them.

This all relates to Bible translation because Jim Coggins writes on the ESV blog,

More than four million copies have now been distributed. Ninety percent of sales have been in North America, but overseas distribution is growing rapidly through partnerships with more than 130 Bible societies around the world.

Dr. Packer told me that the ESV was possibly going to be used as a base for a new translation into Chinese. One has to ask why. One has to look at the close association between the men who have worked on the ESV and the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. One has to ask whether we want to live in a world with growing power imbalances or not. Male authority, male representation, male prominence, male only leadership, and male specific Bibles are all a type of power imbalance.