Abuse: The Elephant in the Sanctuary
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- Written by: Mimi Haddad
From the very beginning Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE) has endeavored to understand why so many Christian women have encountered abuse, and how the church might become agents of healing and reconciliation. Catherine Clark Kroeger, CBE founder and president emerita, vigorously addressed the challenge of abuse which she encountered early on. As president of CBE, Cathie directed a significant portion of CBE's energies to this challenge. In 1994, CBE held a conference themed "Women, Abuse, and the Bible." We were overwhelmed by the number of people who attended this event, and who had experienced abuse in a Christian marriage, family, or church. Within several years of this conference, we had enough material to publish three separate volumes on abuse, gender, and faith. Ultimately, when Catherine Kroeger retired as the first president of CBE, she went on to become founder and president of Peace and Safety in the Christian Home (PASCH), a nonprofit organization devoted to address domestic violence and abuse.
While CBE was established largely by academics to explore the biblical, theological, and historical material on gender, we were inevitably faced with the challenge of addressing abuse as well, simply by sheer numbers of individuals who called upon us for help. Had we been more alert to the prominence of abuse in culture we would not have been caught unaware. Certainly this is the point James Gilligan, a professor of medicine at Harvard, makes in his very helpful book entitled "Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic". The prevalence of abuse is likewise noted in Jackson Katz's book "The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help".
Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Catherine Clark Kroeger
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- Written by: Mimi Haddad
[Reproduced from the CBE International Website]
To our great surprise, our first president, beloved leader, and founder of Christians for Biblical Equality, Dr. Catherine Clark Kroeger, contracted pneumonia and died suddenly on Monday, February 14, 2011. If you are like me, you may find this news entirely out of character with Cathie. For so many of us, Cathie was the embodiment of unsinkable human vitality.
Read more: Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Catherine Clark Kroeger
What is the slogan “equal but different” all about?
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- Written by: Shane Clifton
Dr Shane Clifton’s workshop critiquing the conservative position that women and men are equal in being but functionally different – that men function as leaders and women as followers – is based on a chapter from the book Raising Women Leaders: Perspectives on liberation women in Pentecostal and Charismatic Contexts, edited by Shane Clifton and Jacqueline Grey.
An excerpt of the relevant chapter can be found here (0.5MB)
Women and Abuse
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- Written by: SusanOrr
"I just want the violence to stop"
[Powerpoint Presentation from the workshop (With handout at the end)]
What is abuse?
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Every couple has arguments or disagreements. In a respectful and equal relationship, both partners feel free to state their opinions, to make their own decisions, to be themselves, and to say no to sex. In an abusive relationship, one partner tries to dominate the other through physical harm,criticisms, demands, threats, or sexual pressure.
For the victim and her children, this behaviour can be very dangerous, frightening, confusing and damaging.
Gift-based ministry not gender-based ministry
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- Written by: Cheryl Catford
Powerpoint Outline Only
A HERMENEUTICAL COMMENT:
- Paul does not offer a clear prescriptive statemens
- Paul answer questions and problems faced by the NT church in its early years
- When no explicit instructions are given to us we tend to splinter into a myriad of opinions
- We want to pick and choose texts
- We are strongly influenced by post-NT church history
Riding the third wave
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- Written by: CherylCatford
Riding the third wave: Biblical Equality in the 21st Century
Presented at The CBE International Conference: Better Together June 11-14, 2010 Melbourne, Australia
As the final speaker for this conference I am taking a somewhat different approach to the issue of biblical equality. My interests lie in both theology and sociology and I am aware that we have had a plethora of excellent biblical and theological teaching over the past three days. My topic lends itself to spending some time in the sociological world and then offering some reflections as to how this might impact our theological exposition into the future.
My topic is "Riding the Third Wave: biblical equality in the 21st century". What better metaphor than surfing could I use in this land of beaches, big waves and surfies? I invite you join me on an exploration of this new wave that has emerged relatively recently. Join me on the shore as we watch the wave, surfboard in hand – assessing its size, its direction and its rideability. Who knows – by the end we may be ready to venture out and take a ride ourselves.
Let me begin by addressing the link between culture and hermeneutics.Gender and the Millennium development goals
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- Written by: Andrew Newmarch
Text of Powerpoint slides from the workshop presentation:
How would we know
WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR
MDG # 3 - Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
- Target 3a - Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and to all levels of education no later than 2015
MDG # 5 - Improve Maternal Health
1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio