Will Watchtower ever allow Jehovah's Witnesses women equality? Jimmy Carter's thoughts.

by Balaamsass2 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Balaamsass2

  Ran across this interesting read today penned by former US President Jimmy Carter. He is "Losing his Religion" over it. He makes reference to historical evidence that women played a much bigger role in early Christianity.

  (I watched a program about this some years back on the history channel. Historians were talking about many "banned" books of the bible (some penned by females or extolling women) that were in common use before the Roman Ceasar Constantine's Council of Nicaea made Christianity "legal"- the same Councils Watchtower picks and chooses from.

  It is easy to condemn Islam or Fundamental Christians about bronze age attitudes towards women..but what about Jehovah's Witnesses?

  https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/losing-my-religion-for-equality-20090714-dk0v.html

  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html
  
  
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  Balaamsass2

  I found Jimmy Carter's following quote profound:" The carefully selected verses found in the Holy Scriptures to justify the superiority of men owe more to time and place - and the determination of male leaders to hold onto their influence - than eternal truths. Similar biblical excerpts could be found to support the approval of slavery and the timid acquiescence to oppressive rulers.

  I am also familiar with vivid descriptions in the same Scriptures in which women are revered as pre-eminent leaders. During the years of the early Christian church women served as deacons, priests, bishops, apostles, teachers and prophets. It wasn't until the fourth century that dominant Christian leaders, all men, twisted and distorted Holy Scriptures to perpetuate their ascendant positions within the religious hierarchy.

  The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world." end quote.
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  waton

  take the wt's public wt study then.

  I is the male who decides wich Sister gets the microphone. a male adjusts the volume.

  males serving as slaves to the ladies. what more do you want? and If the bible is inspired, proof-red, why were !

  1Cor. 14; 1Tim.2 (silence please) left in there, the references to Jezebel in Rev?
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  ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara

  No ! Never ! It goes against God and the Bible. Genesis says she will be just a complement never an equal. Throught out the bible you never read about women in high positions, always lower than men n submissive to men. All twelve disciples were men. Many of the stories we read center on males, including those of Moses, Abraham, Paul, David and Joshua. But what does the Bible say about women?

  10 Bible Promises for Women

  • You are loved. (Gal. 2:20, John 3:16)
  • You are not condemned. (Rom. 8:1), (unless it is your father or husband who are given the headship club)
  • You are included. (Eph. 2:19) (in menial duties and things that everyone si included in)
  • You are accepted. (Rom. 15:7) (yeaeee women are blessed......not!)
  • You aren’t alone. (John 16:32) (yeah you have a headship overlord over you and the elders...all men)
  • You are wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14) (wonderfully made weak so results in all kinds of abuse..thank you)
  • You are free. (John 8:36) (really..! under headship arrangement women are always under someone 's thumb/thump, if you get the pun)
  • You are God’s. (John 1:12) (
  • You are chosen. (Eph. 1:4, Col. 3:12) (to do cleaning scrubbign cooking etc)
  • You are no longer a slave to sin. (Rom. 6:6) (but a slave to the elders, fathers, brothers husbands...headship club)

  All this BS does not give women any rights equally.

  Please do not share references that t was a woman who first saw the resurrected jesus etc.... It still doesn tmena much for equal rights.

  Zing
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  rockemsockem

  First off Jimmy Cater is a failed one term president who is an idiot spinless asshat. I would not use him as a reference to anything but which nail to use while framing a HFH home. To say the early Christians were If anything Women were treated worse in biblical times over today's religions except for Islam. That is nothing but a terrorist religion that treats women and others as things to be dominated and used. No where in the bible are women treated as equal to a male. Carter is getting very old and is not addled. He should not talk in public as he is looking more and more like the idiot he is.
  
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  I believe in overlapping

  The Watchtower is not the problem because it's a tiny religion run by the fringes of society--not even 1% of the world population. And it's in decline and probably won't exist in 50 years.

  The problem is people need to be educated that the bible is a book of stories written by ancient superstitious people who were living in a time in history when ignorance was at it's lowest level and women were treated as property, vessels for sexual pleasure, and a baby making machine.

  Once people can see women without religious bias, then women have a chance of not being sidestep as an inferior.
  
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  Xanthippe

  Never ! It goes against God and the Bible. .

  What the op is saying zing is since Constantine the bible books have been carefully chosen to exclude women from positions in churches and refuse them equality. See the apocrypha, the book of Judith for example.

  That books and verses have been left out of the bible canon to create particular doctrines should come as no surprise.
  
  
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  nugget

  No, the Watchtower organisation devalues women. The watchtower robs all members of a chance to feel important or valued outsifde the organisation by denying members advancement through education or career. Having done this it needs to fill the gap by giving men of limited education a place where they can be ambitious and seek to fufil their need to be ambitious by giving them power over others through meaningless religious titles. Women are only important by association with a man who has achieved spiritual advancement.

  If women were treated as equals there would be no one for the men to laud it over and not enough positions to go around leading to dissaffection and loss of members. As men are the primary wage earners in the organisation there would also be a resulting loss of revenue.

  Also to make women equal would cause them to unpick decades of instruction and doctrine which seems too much like hard work for a religion that is at it's heart lazy.
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  tiki

  The lowest on the rung is the female child...then the adult female...next the male child...then the adult male. As long as they cling to old testament family and society structure this is likely not to change....
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  Half banana

  I agree with your post Balaam's ass, and Jimmy Carter gives an insightful comment recognising that earlier forms of Christianity (and there were many) did not prevent women from officiating. It is worth understanding that Christian cults were mainly the domain of the poor and powerless which included women who by gender alone, were considered to be of low status. Therefore for women to be given a voice within the church was a big plus; a rise in status.

  It was the principle in Imperial Rome which asserted its power over so much of Late Classical Europe and the Near East which demanded male dominance as an expression of Imperial function. As the Roman world came severely under threat from outsiders, it was politically expedient to fuse the various Christ cults and form a new State religion-- and assert the Roman male dominance principle and determine the selection of "Christian" texts in line with Imperial thinking. Earlier the image of the "manly God of war" in the Hebrew scriptures was simply echoing the long held patriarchal principle.

  Divergent cultures over time and in different locations have produced social systems, some with matrilineal property inheritance and other important rights for women but there are no cases known to anthropology with exclusively female control.

  We might construe this was due to the child bearing and nurturing role of women contrasted with the apparent need for males to excel at arms and defend their people.

  Let's face it, this gender division and male authority drawn from it, no longer holds true in the advanced societies today. The inflexible governing body are very unlikely to modernise unless there is money in it for them.