In The Resignation of Eve I say that the scriptural arguments regarding women not leading in the church are a diversionary tactic of Satan. The reason I know this is because when it comes to blocking women from reaching the highest levels of influence in the church (that without their energies and support would cease to function) the church and hollywood are in a neck and neck race to the bottom.

When it comes to power,the church continues to conform itself to the ways of this world, the evil Satanic systems that provide power for the elite and only grudgingly dole it out to the people lower down the food chain, which would of course include women.

The same system they ridicule the loudest they adhere to the closest.

The numbers don’t lie. People can have their opinions about the bible this and the bible that but when two systems as antithetical to each other as Hollywood and the Church line up in lock step regarding the degree to which women are “given” power, you know its not about what a book says, no it’s more primal than that. Its’ about one thing – power – those who have it don’t want to give it to those who don’t.

I think the founder of our movement suggested a different relationship with power. I think the church needs to take the log out of its own eye regarding women before it presumes to tell Hollywood to stop putting naked women on camera. That might actually be God’s way of prophetically provoking his people to get their own house in order first.

I wrote The Resignation of Eve in part to expose the strange obstacles women encounter whenever they attempt to access the highest levels of influence and leadership in the Church.

What I discovered in my research is this. These obstacles are not caused by differences in biblical interpretation, that’s a diversionary argument. No the obstacles women face are placed there by men (and women) who love power and/or fear losing it.

Furthermore I discovered that the Church is not alone when it comes to loving power. Statistically the Church is deadlocked with businessmen, politicians and even, Hollywood in a race to the bottom to see who can do the most to keep women from reaching the top.

We now know that well reasoned biblical arguments don’t carry enough sway to reverse this trend. The only thing that defeats power is when those who have more of it share it with those who have less of it. As James Davison Hunter points out in his book To Change The World “Innovation… generally moves from the elites and the institutions they lead to the general population”. In other words while change ideas typically emerge from the artist/creative classes it’s the cultural elites who determine whether those ideas “get to market”. Bottom line: Distribution trumps creativity. And guess what, cultural elites control distribution.

Professor Hunter continues, “The deepest and most enduring forms of cultural change nearly always occur from the top down. In other words the work of world making and world changing are by and large the work of elites; gatekeepers who provide creative direction and management within spheres of social life” The artistic-creative in me finds Hunters assertion repelling but the pragmatic-missionalist in me finds them transformative.

All of which brings me to Sheryl Sandberg the COO of Facebook. If ever there was a poster child for cultural elites it’s Sandberg. How rarefied is this resume? Sandberg is married to the owner of the wildly successful software company Survey Monkey, was one of Googles first employees and is now the COO of Facebook. She is a Gazillionaire. When it comes to royalty, America loves to make fun of the Brits but we have our own version of royalty and Sandberg currently sits right up there with Beyoncé and Zuckerberg.

In her new book “Lean In “Sandberg simply points out what the creative class/feminists have been saying for eons, Women are blocked at the top, the top of the church, the top of business, the top of politics and the top of Hollywood. The stats are available. Google them. Only four percent of Fortune 500 companies have a woman CEO. So what you say? Try this on. What if ninety six percent of fortune 500 companies had women CEOs? Do you think you would notice the discrepancy? Wouldn’t feel alarmed by the blatant misrepresentation of men? That’s the wrong Sanberg wants to right. The difference between Sandberg and us creative-agitators? She’s a cultural elite. Her ideas get distributed fast. She has a megaphone.

William WIlbeforce was a wealthy, politically conservative Parlimentarian who lived in England in the late 1780s. For reasons known and unknown he decided to take up the cause of the Clapham Sect- a group of wealthy Evangelicals who wanted to blur the lines between personal and public faith. Their primary focus was to end the slave trade in England and ultimately to make it illegal. They were elites relative to the majority of people living in the UK but not enough to gain the attention of Parliament. For that they needed to recruit Wilberforce who agreed to provide wider distribution for their worthy but functionally invisible idea. It took him 40 years and some Parliamentary insider information but eventually the Slave Trade was made illegal. The ramifications of that law would be felt in the colonies which had broken away from England’s royalty but not from England’s’ example.

Noted historian Barbara Tuchman said; “In the scales of history inertia always outweighs that of change”. The only time inertia gets the boot is when a cultural elite like Wilberforce or Sandberg signs on to lead the charge at the highest institutional levels. Bottom line: Without cultural elites like Sandberg speaking up women will never achieve the influence they are capable of exercising regardless of how deserving they may be.

Here’s what I wonder.

1. Where is the Sheryl Sandberg for the Church?

2. Why hasn’t the church that names’ itself after histories most powerful advocate for women taken the lead on this issue for the past 2000 years?

3. Why do we imitate the systems we namecheck most often for being the supreme examples of worldliness?

This post is part of the February Synchroblog “Cross Gender Friendships”.  Here’s a list  to all the contributions

http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/link-list-february-2013-synchroblog-cross-gender-friendships/

Jesus liked a lot of people but even a cursory reading of the Gospels will tell you that most of those people were women. He did most of his preaching through women. Along with that The Holy Spirit, whom I consider to be a she, also made sure that women’s stories were positioned front and center in the writing of the Gospels.

People make a big deal out of the fact that Jesus did not choose a woman as one of the Twelve hoping I assume to establish his complementarian credentials once and for all. However, given the cultural limitations within which he operated Jesus took incredible risks advancing the cause of women who were thought of as no better than dogs. Since they were culturally situated at the inverse of power he raised them up.

Men tend to concern themselves with power (who were the twelve?) women tend to focus on serving (who can I help?). In Jesus world serving trumps power every time. Generally speaking in his culture women more closely represented Kingdom servant hood than men did. Which is why he used them so often to make his point.

Dan Brennan is fostering a movement to bring men and women together on Kingdom ground. Instead of defining ourselves by our sexuality we define ourselves as followers of Jesus – the God who established new ground rules for relating with each other. We don’t ignore our sexuality we simply aren’t defined by it.

Dan’s conference invites men and women to explore friendships that are chaste, non-romantic and above all, real. He believes that Jesus set an example for us in his relationship with women. He believes we’re called to pursue the same kinds of relationships with each other.

Jesus clearly had a reason for hanging out with as many women as he did. He loves to be with people who are not in love with power. He is drawn to people who use their power to serve others. That’s why Jesus had a thing for women and so do I.

Pastor Barry Crane has decided to adapt the schedule of his church to accommodate his culture. The Seattle Seahawks are in the playoffs and have  shot at moving even higher  for the first time in a long time. This story was printed in todays edition of The Seattle Times about Pastor Barry calling an audible for his church, making Barry Crane my favorite pastor.

Here’s why

Barry’s God is named Jesus. Jesus differentiated himself from all other “gods” by showing up as a baby and living 33 years in a human body. He spent the first 90% of his life (ages 0-30) appearing to do “nothing” – meaning for most of that time he was invisible, inefficient and well… human. He took on the form of a human and became a servant to those around him (this is how Paul describes it in Phil 2)

Those who follow Jesus are also called to hide themselves in humanity. Jesus told us to “lose our lives” for the sake of his Gospel. He also told us “unless  a corn of wheat falls in the ground and dies it abides alone but if it dies it brings forth much fruit” – Essentially Jesus was the master of making himself invisible.

He did this so he could get closer to the object of his love – human beings. Like Pastor Barry, Jesus was constantly taking flak from “religioinists” who seem fixated on protecting God’s reputation (one wonders what their actual motives were) and hijacking Gods word so that it was turned against the very people it was supposed to be helping.

Here are a couple of more mundane reasons I admire Pastor Barry’s brilliant audible.

If you want to get heard you have to get a hearing – if you want to get a hearing you have to  ”locate your story inside their story” . This is just another reason Jesus came as a human being. He entered our story and captivated us with his story. We didn’t recognize him at first as John said “he moved into the neighborhood”. We thought he was just another guy but it turned out he was God. Barry has masterfully “located” the story of how he and his church think about God “inside” the local story of a football team- Who Knew that you could do that? Apparently Pastor Barry (and The Holy Spirit) did

Sun Tzu said – “when you are near make them think you are far away” Pastor Barry is getting closer and closer to the object of his God’s desire – the people Jesus misses most. Most of those missing people have no idea just how close Pastor Barry and his God  are to them. They think – wow a pastor who likes football – how cool is that. If you think that’s really the end of Barry’s mission – he’s really got you fooled.

Go Hawks!!!