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Dr. Denny Wayman

dwayman@fmcsb.org

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THIS ONLINE DISCUSSION IS PROVIDED BY THE STUDY COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE – SCOD. In the life of the church there are three levels of authoritative documents. Within the Free Methodist Church we define the three levels in this way: First Level is the BOOK OF DISCIPLINE: Official documents approved by the delegates at the General Conference. Second Level is the STUDY COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE: Guidance provided to the church by those assigned the task. These are not personal opinions, but are vetted by scholars who have various expertise. Though not binding on the church, they are meant to be helpful scholarly works. Third Level is this FREE METHODIST CONVERSATIONS. This online discussion is where various individuals express their own opinions about a variety of issues. These are not authoritative, nor are they necessarily meant as guidance, but God may use them to do so. There are SCOD documents on this site and the members of the SCOD will be participants. We are inviting the entire church to join the discussion. Our intention is not to limit discussion but to elevate it by assuring that God’s love and respect is always expressed. We will therefore post those comments which further our mutual understanding and assure that every person is being treated with dignity even when disagreement is being voiced. Specifically: 1. The SCOD encourages respectful, intelligent and impassioned discussion and debate. 2. The SCOD encourages a Wesleyan method of looking at the topic from a Scriptural perspective as well as that of Reason, Tradition and Experience. We recognize the Revelation of God in Scripture is our primary source of truth, with Reason, Tradition and Experience serving as supportive resources. 3. Any personal attack will keep the entire comment from being posted. This includes not only attacking others within this SCOD conversation but anyone within the larger secular or Christian world. 4. Any libelous, defamatory, profane, vulgar, threatening, harassing abusive, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable comments will not be posted. 5. Any invasion of another’s privacy or any post that emulates or pretends to be someone else will not be posted. 6. This online conversation is not to be used to solicit or advertise personal blogs. 12. The SCOD, in our sole discretion, retains the right to remove individual posts or to revoke the access privileges of anyone who we believe has violated any of these standards. For more informal conversations with Free Methodists: LIGHT AND LIFE CONVERSATIONS – Facebook page LIGHT AND LIFE MAGAZINE – Facebook page – Online Issues FM RADIO – Facebook page or iTune episodes If there are any questions contact our moderator, Dr. Denny Wayman: dwayman@fmcsb.org.

WOMEN IN THE EARLY CHURCH

April 15, 2017 By
The Neglected History of Women in the Early Church A number of prominent leaders, scholars, and benefactors of the early church were women and—despite neglect by many modern historians—the diligent researcher can still uncover a rich history.

By Catherine Kroeger

 

Women were the last disciples at the cross and the first at the empty tomb. they remained integral to the work of the church in its early centuries. Catherine Kroeger scours historical data to compile an impressive collection of stories about noteworthy women in the early church.

One of the best-kept secrets in Christianity is the enormous role that women played in the early church.

Though they leave much unsaid, still, both Christian and secular writers of the time attest many times to the significant involvement of women in the early growth of Christianity.

Celsus, a 2nd-century detractor of the faith, once taunted that the church attracted only “the silly and the mean and the stupid, with women and children.” His contemporary, Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, acknowledged in his Testimonia that “Christian maidens were very numerous” and that it was difficult to find Christian husbands for all of them. These comments give us a picture of a church disproportionately populated by women.

Why? One reason might have been the practice of exposing unwanted female infants—abandoning them to certain death. Christians, of course, repudiated this practice, and thus had more living females.

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RACE RELATIONS IN THE CHURCH by Love L. Sechrest

April 12, 2017 By dwayman

Love L. Sechrest teaches at Fuller Seminary.  In this article she writes on Race Relations in the Church.

In this article she makes this observation:

“Indeed more often these days I find that I want to challenge the whole category of “racial reconciliation,” since I am now profoundly troubled by the phrase. As the earliest generation of evangelical activists articulated it, the concept was complex and nuanced and always included a focus on institutional racism in society along with the discussion of interpersonal relationships. However, recent evangelical discourse about racial reconciliation tends to diminish the notion by focusing only on overcoming personal prejudice while turning a sometimes deliberately blind eye to structural matters of inequality like poverty, education, health outcomes, criminal justice issues, and the like. I prefer to talk about “race relations in the church” as a category for this kind of work rather than to focus on “reconciliation” as an overarching theme. The former surely includes the latter and is broad enough to include a topic like restorative justice, a biblical concept that usually receives short shrift in evangelical discussions of race. In other words, the divisions we face today are not going to be healed by weeping for an hour followed by a hug.”

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SELLING SEX SHORT

April 11, 2017 By dwayman

An academic work has been produced by Dr. Meagan Tyler which looks at the “pornographication of culture or the mainstreaming of pornography”.  Though she is writing from a specific perspective that provides solutions with which we may or may not agree, the introduction of her book Selling Sex Short is an important analysis of Western culture.  As a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in the school of management at RMIT she looks at sex from both a cultural as well from an economic perspective.

 

Part of the INTRODUCTION:

This book aims to explore and explain the model of sexuality currently

being constructed through the industries of pornography and sexology (the

“science of sex”) in the West, in particular the United States (US), the

United Kingdom (UK) and Australia. The book focuses on five trends

which have occurred or intensified during the last decade, namely: the

pornographication of culture or the mainstreaming of pornography, the rise

of extreme and violent sex acts in mass-marketed pornography, the

resurgence of sexology, the creation of “female sexual dysfunction”

(FSD), and the rise of “porn stars” as sex experts. While there is now an

emerging body of literature, both popular and academic, which is

beginning to document some of these trends only a handful of sources

currently engage in critical feminist analysis.

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RUTH IS NOT A ROMANCE TALE

April 9, 2017 By

In a fascinating article at MISSIO ALIANCE  the author explores how a male pastor exhibits a clear misunderstanding of the purpose and focus of the biblical book of Ruth.  It is written by Carolyn Custis James, the author of THE GOSPEL OF RUTH.  The multilayered value of this article includes the fact that male patriarchal society turns a woman’s faith journey into a romance novel using a Cinderella hermeneutic.  Misunderstanding both the motivation and cultural setting, pastors can easily miss a great opportunity to teach the true word of God.  As Carolyn James says it:  “Driscoll needs to realize that the Bible is not a Disney movie, but an earthshaking existential confrontation with the deepest issues of life in a fallen world and of the hope that is Jesus.”

in part she writes:

…Abandoning Cinderella for a Better Love Story

Within the patriarchal culture, a woman’s chief contribution in life was to produce sons for her husband. Women in the Bible are desperate for sons. None of them are begging God for daughters. Under patriarchy, a woman’s value is gauged by counting her sons. Sons are essential for family survival. The fate the ancients feared most was for a man to die without a male heir to perpetuate the family for another generation.

So when a post-menopausal Naomi loses her husband and both her sons, she plummets from the status of an honored mother of two sons to a zero.

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THE QUESTION OF IDENTITY

April 6, 2017 By

 

In a recent article at one of our FM schools’ newspaper a student stated ““My identity has never been addressed…”  This student is described by the author of the article:  “When [student] first came to [the FM university] they’d still been in the closet. It wasn’t until around February 2017 that [student] began to identify as nonbinary, use they/them pronouns and, eventually, paint their nails and wear makeup as well.”  The article goes on to quote the assertion of a student that the  “[the school] ‘respects homosexuals’ but does not affirm ‘queer love’ on the same level that it affirms heterosexual love….”  “I don’t know how long we as a campus are going to be able to do this,” he said. “I think we’re going to have to choose.”

To use the same language as this student, this is a binary solution that requires a Christian to either be for or against a person who chooses to make their identity in their gender or sexual attraction.  This is not a true solution.  The culture has decided that loving someone in Christ is not acceptable.  The culture has decided that love must be conditional and that the person being loved determines on what condition Christians are and can love and respect them.   That perspective does not from Christ or from Scripture.  Christ calls us to love all.  No exception.  That is our Christian Identity.

This identity in Christ as being one of Holy Love,

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