The Blue Parakeet and Terms of Empowerment
by Cadet Erin Wikle
Book Reflection: The Blue Parakeet & Terms of Empowerment
The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight
From the beginning of time, God knew a great Story would be
recounted and written that would feature a whole collection of
stories and tales, chapters and verses that would feature the
same theme within its many pages: oneness within otherness. I
never grow tired of hearing this story. In his book,
The Blue Parakeet,
author Scot McKnight unites an academic explanation of
Eikon (image/God’s
likeness) with an altogether accessible account of the idea of
oneness, and how
“from the beginning” God’s intention was to create man and
woman in his likeness and as one flesh, mutually submissive to
each another, and in perfect fellowship and unity with one
another, just as is modeled within the Trinity (McKnight 69).
God wastes no time expressing the importance of
oneness, because
before you know it, the story yields conflict and the
beautiful and perfect covenant God establishes with his first
created is horrifically and tragically broken, only to be
magnificently and mercifully restored, one time, once and for
all, by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The End.
And yet, its beauty and simplicity brings such complication to
“the rest of us.” Where we should simply see fit to rest in
the knowledge that Jesus restored the “cracked Eikon” McKnight
speaks of, we continue to struggle, unsettled with our
“otherness” – in being Jew or Gentile, slave or free, and male
or female. McKnight’s teaching of reconciliation and oneness
reminds me that perhaps “it” does need to be that simple.
As I consider my life in Christ and the ministry that lies
before me, I see more clearly God’s desire for me to remember
the Story, the purpose, his intention. I am reminded that from
the very beginning of time, God’s very intention was to
establish that all
(no exceptions) are created in his very image and likeness,
and that God spared not even his own son to make it possible
to have our broken image fully restored to him and to one
another. If it weren’t quite as important to establish from
the “get-go” that all of humanity was created thoughtfully and
equally, it likely would not have been important to establish
at all. Yet, the outflow this story is the very basis by which
we are to live, operate, and interact with God and with
others. As I consider my life as a
woman in ministry,
I am compelled to uncomplicate the theological debates,
internal arguments, role confusion, and spiritual-giftedness
timidity by remembering that I was designed for his purposes.
McKnight writes, “the
mutuality view, which taps into this
“oneness-otherness-oneness” theme deeply, also believes a
woman’s responsibility is to glorify God, to love God, to love
others” (McKnight 161). That is my goal.
Terms of Empowerment: Female Ministry, Catherine Booth
The co-founder of The Salvation Army, Catherine Booth, makes
no mistake in poignantly exposing, through careful evaluation
and exegesis of scripture, the
real roles of women
in the home, church, and in society from her perspective.
Written just four years after the holiness movement was
established, the woman pulls no punches… and doesn’t need to,
because her platform to speak has not been “given”, but
rightfully belongs to her.
Though its archaic language was more difficult to engage, I
found Booth’s argument against what is “natural” to man and
woman intriguing. It seemed that women’s role in public
ministry, specifically her pulpit ministry, was of great
dispute, because it seems
unnatural. Booth
argued that “graceful form, attitude, winning manners,
persuasive speech [… all seemed]
natural qualifications
for such an office (Booth 1). Booth spoke to the egregious
accusations of it being unfeminine or of vain and ambitious
pursuit to take up the pulpit, but swiftly makes mention that
these same statements are near to nonexistent as it pertains
to men taking the same stand in public ministry (Booth 3). Her
argument was not that these women who took to preaching
shouldn’t be deemed
ambitious, but that there should be no reason to cast off such
connotation simply because
they were women –
“would that the Lord’s people had more of this ambition”
(Booth 3). According to Booth, if man could work towards a
full and ambitious pulpit ministry, then so could woman – but
not because man could, rather, because she was fully and
completely capable of doing so herself.
Booth uses scripture extensively to show the validity of women
in ministry – specifically to preach, teach, admonish, pray
and prophesy, pointing out the examples of Deborah the
prophetess and first judge of Israel, and Huldah, perhaps a
lesser known prophetess, accounted for in 2 Kings, and Miriam
in the story of the Israel exile from Egypt, etc. She
continues to highlight how certain words whose meaning was
inclusive of female
company were even “lost in translation” over the years
simply because the implications were too great (Booth 21).
In reading, I was most struck by Booth’s brave and bold
statement about the oppression of women in ministry causing
the “non-success” of advancing the Gospel during their time.
She shares, “[this] has resulted in more loss to the Church,
evil to the world, and dishonour to God, than any of the
errors we have already referred to” (Booth 32).
She pulls no punches.
These statements open my mind to the sickening reality that
any acts of oppression pitted against those operating within
their gifting in order to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ
is a direct affront to the Spirit of God at work within the
world. I cringe at the fact that any decision made to withhold
one’s right to preach, pray, prophesy, make decisions, and
operate in authority, are likely rooted in deep fear of what
is unfamiliar and perceived inappropriate, and I beg God for
his forgiveness on behalf of those who would dare oppose the
forceful advancement of God’s kingdom for fear of being
uncomfortable. It is remarkable that even at the precipice of
egalitarianism within the Church and at the onset of the Army,
there was struggle – both within and without. Yet, a century
and some years later, here we are, still struggling. Yes,
perhaps to a lesser degree, but still – struggling.
Terms of Empowerment: Keeping the Dream Alive, Kay Rader
Commissioner Kay Rader spoke plainly of the problem of
inequality amongst women worldwide through personal stories
and encounters in places like Uganda, the Congo, India and
other 3rd world nations. Rader highlights gender
equality as a systemic problem of these 3rd world
cultures – stemming from an inaccessibility of education,
inadequate healthcare, and ineffective welfare systems. The
statistics are staggering and show the reality of inequality:
in Thailand, almost 50 percent of child prostitutes are
HIV-positive, the number of women who die each year in
childbirth numbers near 600,000, and almost (now, greater
than) 60 million women are deemed “missing” due to gender
discrimination
(Rader 74, 72, 76). Rader references Evangeline Booth, who in
the 1930s believed transformation for women was imminent… and
yet, here we are, nearly a century later, still fighting
against the same powers of darkness and wide spread oppression
(Rader 70).
Similar to McKnight’s argument in
The Blue Parakeet,
Rader reminds its reader that the biblical basis for equality
emanates from the
beginning, that “God created man in His own image, in the
image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He
created them” (Genesis 1:27 AMP). For many, it seems inherent,
as Christiana and followers of Christ, that we would not
consider or treat any man, woman, or child with any bias or
discriminatory thought or action. Yet, I do not believe this
is the reality within the vast majority of us live. Because
the paradigm for which we view the world has been informed by
the contexts with which we have been raised and because our
own cultural backgrounds play such a large role in forming our
thought pattern, it is pertinent we carefully consider any
unexposed thoughts of degradation and discrimination towards
others – because they
do exist.
Rader shares, “It is about keeping alive the dream of the
founders William and Catherine Booth. We have come a long way
in recent years, but there is a road ahead, and we must keep
it an open road, a road to the future for women and men,
married and single. It’s about keeping the Army the Army”
(Rader 98). Undoubtedly, the issue of equality, transcending
all places and privileges and for all people, is one that
assuredly is not “resolved”. Rather, it seems all the more
urgent to aggressively fulfill the mandate to
love God and
love others – and
in that order – before ever expecting to effect world-wide and
lasting change towards the end of real biblical equality.
Works Cited
McKnight, Scot. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the
Bible. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2008. Print.
Terms of Empowerment: Salvation Army Women in Ministry. West
Nyack, NY: The Salvation Army, USA Eastern Territory, 2001.
Print.
The Amplified Bible.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987. Print.
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