I've been listening to
Pass the Mic (I believe on the recommendation of Mrs. Curmudgeon), the podcast of the
Reformed African-American Network for a couple years now. It was thus that I heard the now-infamous "
Gender Apartheid" episode, a crossover with the
Truth's Table podcast. I won't bother recounting the sturm und drang which ensued; if you're blissfully unaware, the
Google will tell you more than you need to know.
The kerfuffle gave me another occasion to reflect (as it seems I have had many occasions of late) on white people and what is wrong with them, especially the male ones who hold positions of influence and power in confessionally reformed circles. Anyone who knows me will freely tell you I have no idea what it would be like to hold a position of influence or power (despite the fact that every once in a while dozens [literally, dozens] of people read one of my blog posts), but I imagine that were I in one I would feel secure and self-confident. Instead, many of these men act like snowflakes (to coin a term) when they hear someone using terms which make them uncomfortable and describing reality in a manner to which they are unaccustomed.
Take, for example, R. Scott Clark, a professor at
Westminster Seminary California, who recently commented on the original podcast at his
Heidelblog in a two-part analysis. For the sakes of space and propriety, I will put aside the utter offensiveness and insanity of a late-middle-aged white Nebraskan taking umbrage at black women a decade or so younger than he using the term "apartheid" and presuming to lecture them on its historical context. (I am not making this up.) Instead, I will note that
the first segment of his analysis focuses entirely on the terms "gender apartheid" and "toxic masculinity" without any engagement whatsoever with how the hostesses of
Truth's Table defined those terms in their discussion. Notable also is a failure to interact with the problems they describe as occurring in confessionally reformed circles. Here's the closest Clark gets:
The question remains: Is there systematic oppression of females in NAPARC churches? Again, definitions are essential. In our late-modern subjectivist culture, recognition of sexual differences and of a creational pattern is regarded as “systematic oppression” but Christians may not simply adopt cultural categories and use them to leverage Scripture and nature. Christians recognize that there is such a category as nature, that there are such things as “givens.” There are laws of nature and there is a God who made nature. Properly defined, we should conclude that no, there is not a systematic oppression of females. Are there quarters within the NAPARC world in which females are told, in effect, to “sit down and shut up”? Yes. This is part of the problem. In reaction to the various iterations of feminism, some congregations do not allow females to vote in congregational meetings on the grounds that voting is an exercise of authority and therefore a violation of 1 Timothy 2:12. This strikes me as an unlikely inference and application of this passage.
I read this paragraph (and its broader context) several times, and am still confused. On the one hand there is no systematic oppression of females, apparently because on Clark's definitions there cannot be. On the other hand, there are "quarters within the NAPARC world in which females" are oppressed. Eh?
In
the second section of his analysis, Clark presents an unobjectionable view of sexual relationships within the Creation order, but doesn't actually touch on anything in the podcast except in one paragraph. There, he states "
When the podcasters spoke about qualifications for special office (e.g., elder) in the church they mocked the idea that only men are permitted to hold special office by reducing the qualifications to male anatomy." Actually, they said no such thing. Instead, they noted that opportunities for non-ordained persons to participate in a Church's ministries are often restricted to non-ordained persons who are "ordainable," which in practice often means nothing more than "male." (I will note that this is a complex issue worthy of much discussion by itself, and so I will not comment here.) At least in this regard, it appears Clark failed to listen carefully to that which he presumed to critique before presuming to critique it.
Sadly, Clark's response exemplifies most of the reformed white male responses to the "Gender Apartheid" podcast which I've encountered. (For the record, I am not a reformed white male, but a presbyterian white man.) To me, they read something like, "I am terribly offended by your recasting the discussions in terms which the people like me have not previously authorized, and will therefore excuse myself from paying any heed to the actual arguments you are making." The bitter irony, of course, is that many (although probably not all) of these middle- to late-middle-aged reformed white males have criticized today's young people for being overly delicate snowflakes.
Honestly, I listened to the original podcast and found nothing objectionable about it. The comments, particularly from the ladies, are trenchant, but that's what makes for entertaining listening. They were having an open and honest conversation, not attempting to educate me or reformed white males comfortable in their privilege: something which they have every right, before God and man in these United States, to do. Why would I bother to take offense?
And now I have given you just what everyone has been waiting for: a white man's opinions on race and gender relations. At long last.
In his Interpretation commentary on 1 & 2 Samuel, Walter Bruggemann observes of David's rise to the throne that he "takes no initiatives. He does not assert himself or express any ambition. He only receives what is given." David is almost passive as he comes to power, never taking direct action against King Saul or his family. Having been anointed as Israel's next king in 1 Samuel 16, David waits patiently for the moment his position will be recognized by all Israel.
David stands in striking contrast to William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Whereas David is anointed by a prophet long before he can take the throne, Macbeth is told his destiny to rule by three prophetic witches. Macbeth is a tragedy because a great and noble warrior determines to bring about his destiny through "murder most foul" (Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5) and makes himself cruel and corrupt. The witches, as the three Fates of Greek mythology, induce Macbeth to self-condemnation and destruction rather than glory.
