Beyoncé: Power or Bondage?

Bold, black, and beautiful, Beyoncé took center stage at halftime of Sunday night's Super Bowl. Commanding the stage in a black leather swimsuit (?) and boots, she strutted as she sang several familiar pop tunes.

She certainly grabbed attention. But what was the message? Writing for the Progressive Christian channel of Patheos, David Henson argued, 

"If what you saw was an offensive, inappropriate hypersexual display of legs and barely covered unmentionables, let me suggest you saw only what you were staring at, not what actually happened on that stage." So what really happened? He writes:

Beyoncé's performance Sunday night in New Orleans wasn't about sex. It was about power, and Beyoncé had it in spades. In fact, her show was one of the most compelling, embodied, and prophetic statements of female power I have seen on mainstream television.

I agree that she powerfully embodied strength and boldness as the world would see it. But I could no longer ignore the sexual suggestiveness of her performance when she licked her finger, drug it down her body, and wrapped her hands around her head. However you interpret such an act, we can't deny that Beyoncé's performance carried a message that sexuality and sensuality are powerful and attractive.

Women say they want men to stop objectifying them, yet I wonder. Are we helping our cause with hyper-sexual performances such as Beyoncé's? I do not fault her alone. I believe she is a product of her environment, the pop music industry. Sex sells, and she's a smart businesswoman. I don't deny Henson's general premise, either, because sexuality is also powerful. Beyoncé wields power in her decision to use only female performers and musicians and celebrates it in her song "Run the World (Girls)."  Even so, I can't help but ask: How are we supporting women by celebrating when they flaunt their sexuality in public?   Continue at Trillia Newbell

Paul Washer: The Gospel's Power and Message

I have never been the kind to enjoy an afternoon at the art gallery. It’s not that I don’t like art—I really do—but more that I don’t understand it very well. Of course the fact that I am red-green color blind probably doesn’t help my cause too much, but it seems that what excites artists, what stands out to them, does very little for me.

One of those funny little memories of my childhood involves a day visiting the Art Gallery of Ontario with my aunt and uncle. Both of them are artists and both of them love visiting art galleries. Hour after hour we would walk into a room with paintings hung on every wall. I would do a quick survey, glance at each painting, and then go to the middle of the room and grab a snooze on the little padded bench. Meanwhile, my aunt and uncle would walk slowly, they would take a long look at each painting, they would look at it from different angles, they would express joy and delight at the technique the artist used, at the colors he chose, at the detail he included—the light falling upon an object, the careful brushstrokes, the shading, the precision. The three of us were in that art gallery together, but one of us had a very, very different experience from the other two.

I thought of my aunt and uncle and I thought of that art gallery as I read Paul Washer’s new book The Gospel’s Power and Message. There is something in my nature, I think, that wants to glance instead of linger. I get restless quickly, I look for a moment and then move on to other things. I have come to see that it is often better to linger, that certain things can only be seen and grasped by that long and dedicated study. And this is exactly what Washer does in his book.

The Gospel’s Power and Message is the first of a trilogy from Washer, three books together titled “Recovering the Gospel” that take a long, deep look at the gospel. Washer begins in a slightly defensive posture, showing how the gospel has been reduced, neglected, and attacked in so many contemporary churches.   Continue at Tim Challies

Debatable: Is Complementarianism Another Word for Patriarchy?

[Note: "Debatable" is a new feature in which we briefly summarize debates within the evangelical community.]

The Issue: Is complementarianism another word for patriarchy? Egalitarians and many complementarians agree: It is indeed. But a recent debate attempts to determine whether this should be acknowledged as a timeless biblical norm or rejected as an outdated cultural standard.

Position #1: Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Seminary, recently said at the Together for the Gospel conference that complementarians should practice what they preach:

What I fear is that we have many people in evangelicalism who can check off "complementarian" on a box but who really aren't living out complementarian lives. Sometimes I fear we have marriages that are functionally egalitarian, because they are within the structure of the larger society. If all we are doing is saying "male headship" and "wives submit to your husbands," but we're not really defining what that looks like . . . in this kind of culture, when those things are being challenged, then it's simply going to go away.

Position #2: Rachel Held Evans, an author and blogger, agrees but says complementarianism is losing because it is "nothing more, nothing less" than patriarchy:

1. They are losing ground because more and more evangelical theologians, scholars, professors, and pastors are thoughtfully debunking a complementarian interpretation of Scripture and doing it at the popular level through books like The Blue Parakeet (by Scot McKnight), Discovering Biblical Equality (by Ronald Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Gordon Fee), How I Changed My Mind About Women in Church Leadership (by a who's who of evangelical leaders), through evangelical colleges and seminaries that celebrate women's giftedness to lead and are producing record numbers of female graduates, and through organizations like Christians for Biblical Equality.   Continue at Joe Carter

Women aren’t Fish and Men aren’t Bicycles

In the seventies, Gloria Steinem famously quipped, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Then she and the rest of her feminist buddies set about to convince us of this idea. Sadly, we swallowed the bait. And now a whole generation of girls is being raised to believe that men are inconsequential, and that women can make it just fine without them.

Take the T-shirt a friend of mine spotted for sale in Target, for example. In large, garish print designed to splash across a girl’s developing breasts the T-shirt proclaims, “Who needs boys, I can WIN by myself!”

Just think about it for a moment. On the surface, the slogan seems to encourage a girl to develop a healthy self-respect and avoid getting enmeshed in dependent relationships.  But there’s an underlying message here. The slogan insinuates that men are inferior, and that they are expendable. It fosters an unhealthy, independent, a-woman-needs-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle, type of attitude.

Honestly, what would you think would happen if Target started selling a boy’s shirt that spouted: “Who needs GIRLS, I can WIN by myself”? Can you imagine the outrage?

Power and Independence

 

Today’s young woman is taught to value personal power and independence. She can WIN! She doesn’t need men. Indeed, in order to truly win, she must do so without them. Men are the bad guys. They’re the ones who stand in the way of a woman reaching her full potential. They’re the optional and disposable piece in a woman’s life. Independence is the highly prized and sought after trait that will guarantee her success. So she approaches relationships with the resolve to retain her autonomy at all costs.

Even in Christian circles, we cultivate an attitude of independence in our girls. The underlying message is that women need to be independent because men are untrustworthy, and will almost certainly let them down.

But can a woman truly “win” in a world without men? Is she better off without ties to a godly father, uncle, cousin, husband, or brother? Will she succeed when she fiercely exerts her autonomy and regards and treats men as non-essential? Will this attitude actually enhance her relationships and her life?

I think not.   Continue at Mary Kassian

Purity, Power, and the Missing Mark of the Church

Arguably the best general description of the effect the New Testament Church had on its society is given by Luke in Acts 17:6. When an unruly mob could not find Paul and Silas — the source of their irritation — they dragged other Christians before the city officials and declared, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6). What was intended as a damning criticism, however, was actually an unintended accolade because unbelievers were admitting that the early Christians were having a substantial impact upon society, a society characterised by polytheism, gladiatorial combats, sex outside of marriage, divorce, infanticide, and abortion. This account sounds just like life in early twenty-first century Western civilization, doesn’t it? Well, it does, except for the bit about the church turning the world upside down.

Our postmodern, pluralistic society is not far removed in essence from first-century Graeco-Roman society. Ungodliness is still here, immorality is still in evidence, and the life-is-cheap attitude still pervades. But society in the West does not really notice or take seriously the church. Why? Could it be because the reality of the living God is not being seen in the Western church? Could it be because there is no attention-grabbing evidence of the transforming power of the gospel? Could it be because, to some extent, the sign ichabod is metaphorically hanging over the doors of many sanctuaries and around the necks of many Christians? And if all this is the case, why is it the case? Could it be because, generally speaking, Christians in the West are simply not as devoted to the Apostles’ teaching as we should be? I am increasingly convinced that this is the case.   Keep Reading>>>

Seeking to Preach the Word in the Power of the Spirit

Today I'm off to the Westminster Fellowship in London, where I've been invited to preach and also give a paper on Word and Spirit in Preaching. Here's an excerpt from the lecture on seeking to preach the Word in the power of the Spirit:


Jesus taught that Christians should pray expectantly to the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13). Preachers are especially in need of the Spirit's work in their ministries.

The apostle Paul did not regard preaching in the power of the Spirit as being in any way automatic. He constantly urged the churches to pray for him, Keep Reading...

Book Review: Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

If you ask the average American on the streets if we are a nation given to idols, the obvious answer would be, “No!”. Idolatry was commonplace in the pagan Greek and Roman cultures, but may scarcely be found in these more enlightened times. But what if there really are counterfeit gods all around us, only the kind not made of stone or metal? “In Ezekiel 14:3,” Keller reminds us, “God says about elders of Israel, 'these men have set up idols in their hearts.' Like us, the elders must have responded to the charge, 'Idols? What idols? I don't see any idols?' God was saying that the human heart takes good things like career, love, and material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the integrating centers of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and complete fulfillment, if we attain them”. If this really is the definition of idolatry, then perhaps it is not so foreign as we think. And perhaps we are not just given over to, but being destroyed by idols. If we look for “safety and complete fulfillment” in things that can never finally provide that, then are we not doomed to despair? Are there not a great many more Wall Street experiences in store for us? Read the rest HERE

A WEAPON OF MASS INSTRUCTION...the power and authority of God's Word

The most effective weapon we possess as Christians for the work of the ministry is not pragmatic methodology, our TV shows, book clubs, music concerts, radio programs, our celebrities, famous pastors, or even our social alliances with other cultural moral entities--as effective as some of those things may be. The most effective weapon that any church or Christian possesses is the Word of God and the life lived in obedience to its claims. The church's responsibility before God as the "pillar and support of the truth" is to guard and proclaim the truths of Scripture. Consequently, the most severe crime against God is to mishandle His revelation, thus portraying a false, idolatrous image of Him to the world.

When our grip on the "sword of the Spirit" is loosened and our spiritual muscles have atrophied, the "once for all delivered to the saints faith" is hastily replaced by a saber of our own carnal invention. We cannot fight the good fight of faith with fleshly weaponry! Read the rest HERE

The Vital Necessity of Knowing the Power of Truth in our Own Experience

The Keeping Power of God