Education and Entrepreneurship

"So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father." (Heb. 2:11)

In addressing the Father in prayer, Jesus gave a direct communication:

“you love them as much as you love me”. (Jn. 17:23)

Gender and racial equality seems so obvious in scripture, yet some still struggle with it.

Men like Booker T. Washington, were heroes of faith, who lived as if no race is better or less than but all races are equal.  He is best known for a speech he gave called the  "Atlanta compromise, when he called for black progress through education and entrepreneurship, rather than trying to challenge directly the Jim Crow segregation and the disenfranchisement of black voters in the South.” (Wikipedia)

That is a great strategy for both gender and racial equality. 

What is so controversial about gender and racial equality?

A great example is Usain Bolt.  He not only is a great athlete, but he is also a great entrepreneur.  Forbes.com says he receives $30 million in endorsements a year.  The other night, it was amazing, as an American I found myself pulling for a non-American to win the 100-meter.  I wasn’t alone, as many reported the same phenomenon. 

Forced gender and/or racial equality aren’t working, but it can be given, feely, and willingly for it is heart issue.

Consider searching for a congregation that is free from the chaos of male dominance, and/or white supremacy.  Consider asking your pastor straight up, “what do you think about gender and racial equality?” (Especially if it a white male.) 

Why not engage in conversations with friends and family, and see what they believe about gender and racial equality?

It is a surprising and enlightening conversation.

We have tackled these conversations in our congregation and are aligning ourselves under scriptural authority, and would welcome you as equal brothers and sisters, whom the Heavenly Father loves just as much as the Father Loves Jesus (with or without education and entrepreneurship). 

Until the day dawns when all genders and races are granted equality at the heart level consider the pathway of higher education and financial entrepreneurship that Booker T. Washington proposed and Usain Bolt models.

Man and Woman are to be a "balanced pair".

1 Cor. 11: 10 is described as “a text so difficult that it has defied our best scholarly guesses over centuries” (Gordon Fee)

10For this reason, and because the angels are watching, a woman should wear a covering on her head to show she is under authority.

Here are some “scholarly guesses”.

All women have the freedom or right to choose who is the authority in their life. (She is the authority over her life.) 

No one is to be OVER her.

No one is to be between her and the Lord.

Man and Woman are to be a “balanced pair” (Fee).

There is a distinction of the genders. (We are not as the angels)

Angels do not lust over human women, with or without clothes, or a head covering. 

Whatever the head covering was, it could not be transferred, across the board in a multifaceted, multi cultural church.  It is therefore impossible to fully obey their custom, and consider it obedient to scripture.

A church can abuse women, when that church views them as a gender as less than the male. 

Both genders are equal in a balanced pair.  One isn’t given more weight in the relationship.

Here are a few of my questions on some interpreters of the passage who insist men have short hair and that women have their head covered with a shawl, and have long, uncut, and put up hair.

Why would a man with short hair be more righteous than a man with long hair?

At what point between haircuts does a male become unrighteous?

Why would a woman be more righteous with uncut, put up hair, than a woman with loosely flowing, styled hair?

Why would a woman going through chemotherapy and lose their hair, be less righteous than someone with hair.

Why would a woman need another mediator other than Jesus to be in right relationship with God?

I once had long hair, in an attempt to grow it long enough to donate so others would have a wig during chemotherapy. A visitor to our congregation told me he would come back and visit when I cut my hair.  (He hasn’t and I am glad.)

Which picture denotes more or less righteous?

Demanding that others conform to a one’s interpretation of scripture, especially when it is described as the one passage that is so difficult it has defied researches for centuries, is not a good way to go.

Sexual abuse and harassment is back in the public arena for discussion. 

Consider your own view of man and woman.  Anything other than a “balanced pair” opens the door for abuse and harassment.