Slaying the monsters
Theological issues might be “settled” for us, but there is a big world out there that needs to hear our voices.
It was several years ago when I grabbed my mug and walked across the coffeehouse to the table where Dr. Frances Taylor Gench sat. I can’t remember if I was late for the appointment, but I do recall the frenetic energy I held. My jangling self sat in stark contrast from Frances’s calm and soothing manner. As a pastor/mom, I was always juggling too many things, but I needed this meeting. I had gleaned a great deal from Frances’s work on the gospel of John and hoped that I could talk with her about chapter three, especially Jesus’s words that we must be born from above. I wanted to re-claim that feminine imagery from my fundamentalist past. I wanted to be born again again, and I figured Frances would be the perfect guide to help me.
She was. And she did much more than that. After I talked about my book idea, the subject turned to her project. She said that she was working on something about the household codes—those sentences in the Epistles that stated that wives needed to submit to their husbands and other tyrannical texts.
I winced and asked, “Why?” As a feminist, it seemed to me that those scriptures were part of the Bible we needed to neglect, like the ones on stoning rebellious children. They didn’t really need a spotlight shining on them, did they? Our understanding of those verses had been settled long ago.
