Well, my wife just told me that Jeff's song is actually TEN times funnier when you hear the music, which, being translated, means: "Without the music, it's not really funny at all."
Bummer.
So as penitence for ruining a pretty funny song, and for repeatedly dogging on my Church of Christ heritage, I'm going to link you to something good that comes out of our tradition.
Manhattan Church of Christ Resources
The kiddy stuff is nice, I guess, but what you really want to peruse is A Community Without Barriers: Women in the NT and the Church Today. (Unless you speak Spanish, and then you want Una Comunidad sin Barreras. You'll probably also want to read the Spanish translation of this blog, which will be available just as soon as I become fluent in something other than Spanish curse-words.)
One of the nice things about our tradition is that it's very interested in knowledge, and also very interested in the Bible. This accounts for the fact that some of the world's best biblical manuscript scholars have come out of the Churches of Christ. (I'm sure there must be a better term than "biblical manuscript scholars", but you guys are going to have to help me on that one.) For me, this means that it's easier to respect the text while critiquing it, floating somewhere between the Bible-bashers and the Bible-worshipers.
A Community Without Barriers is a study guide written by Dr. Thomas L. Robinson, the senior minister of the Manhattan Church of Christ. It investigates what the NT has to say about women, giving particular attention to Jesus' interactions with them.
Robinson's guide is good because it encourages the church to realize the full humanity and equality of women. But it's really good because it does so without exploding the traditional Church of Christ hermeneutic. In other words, it doesn't flagrantly break any of our rules for interpreting the Bible, which makes it accessible to (the tradition's) moderates, and even some conservatives.
If you don't have time to read the full 120 pages, at least read the chapter summaries. Nothing earth-shattering there, but you might get hooked and read the whole thing.
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2 comments:
Thanks for the comment on my site. I don't know if I knew you in Abilene or not. If I do know you, then I'm blanking. Sorry.
You mentioned on Dan's site that you know who I am. Like Dan, I can't make the connection. Anyway, I like your site. I've always kind of thought that the Church of Christ had a great beginning with the Restoration Movement but started feeling superior to everyone. It would be like me saying that I've found this really great way to cook a hamburger, that makes all other ways completely unnecessary. Not that the other ways don't get the job done, but I just want a hamburger and don't want to have to jump through hoops to get one. Now, I pass this method down to my children and grandchildren,and before long the Martin Grill Method has a widespread following. Pretty soon there are people saying that if you don't use my method of cooking a hamburger than you can't actually eat it. You won't be able to swallow or something, and if it does find it's way to your stomach than it won't fill you up. Seems ridiculous to me.
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