Simon Chan once said, “True theology occurs when the faithful respond with ‘amazed recognition’ to the theologian: You said for us what we had wanted to say all along but could not find the words to say it.” This was my experience reading Neither Complementation Nor Egalitarian by Michelle Lee-Barnewell. […]
Tanzanians draw their gender roles and distinctions in all kinds of different places to us in Australia. They call themselves a patriarchal society, but women have freedom in places where they don’t in the west. So when our friend Isaac got married to Jema on the weekend, there was no […]
Last Friday we looked at some of Vinoth Ramachandra’s theological reflections in Subverting Global Myths — reflections for Christians to take on board. He also has some considerations of what Christians might have to offer in postcolonial conversations. In part these flow out of Ramachandra’s concern for context. He suggests that unless we safeguard the multiplicity and particularity […]
Arthur and I went to a seminar on marriage with our Sudanese friends once. We were all ready to have a discussion about Ephesians 5 or 1 Peter 3 but our friends saw nothing controversial there. They wanted to talk about dowries. Living in Australia, the traditional dowry of cows […]
So, equality is a good thing, desired by God, but it’s not about everyone having the same so much as everyone having enough. It can’t involve condescension on the part of the giver and must involve empowerment of the receiver. What does that look like in practice?
When you think about social action, how much does ‘equality’ factor into your thinking? I suspect for many of us, the idea that ‘we have so much and they have so little’ is a strong motivator. We see the discrepancy and work to balance it out. In encouraging the Corinthians […]
Part 1, part 2, part 3 Marriage is a microcosm of human society. A key aspect of this micro level is headship in marriage.
Meet Jesus at uni 