This interview has been floating around the web in several forums from Crossway’s Book Blog site to personal blog sites of a political nature, etc.. I had some pretty strong thoughts regarding the interview as I watched it and I wanted to bring here for conversation.
Thoughts, criticisms, reflections…
September 16, 2008 at 9:26 am
Similar to above responses, I wasn’t fully satisfied with the particular hermeneutics of either person interviewed. I did, however, appreciate Baucham insisting upon his job being to declare the gospel and the truth, with the text driving outlook rather than the surrounding culture driving outlook.
That’s not an easy task. And on these issues, it’s complex. The hermeneutics is complex, the contemporary culture is complex, and bridging the two is complex.
Insistence on Scripture as the foundation of people’s epistemology, though, is right. And it is nice to hear that be communicated on CNN (even if its being put into practice in the same interviewed wasn’t all it needs to be).
September 12, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Anybody want to hear my thoughts? :>
Baucham sounded like a fundamentalist here, no “borderline” about it. His interpretive formula is so rigid that it results in raining ridicule down on the very Scriptures he so desperately wants to protect.
It continues to puzzle me that these “women” verses are imported directly into “plain meaning of the text” ecclesiology without contextualized interpretation, when so many others that are equally strident and equally unworkable are contextualized to death. Baucham favors Titus. I wonder how he would preach Titus 1:12-13 in Heraklion?
As for Deborah, she not only led Israel, but spoke for Yahweh as his prophetess. His easy dismissal of her suggests a shallow understanding of her role and her early placement – fourth – in the Judges cycle.
I appreciated Feinberg’s measured tones. She didn’t back down, but didn’t lose her cool either. She revealed a hermeneutic that has taken some of these traditional verses and set them in culturally relevant context. I didn’t find her examples particularly strong, but they weren’t bad. She certainly wasn’t slicing the verses out of the text.
Women staying home and living as unemployed wives and mothers is not a prescriptive biblical paradigm, it’s a twentieth century American custom. There are times and situations where it makes much sense; I’ve done it. But there are all kinds of women in all kinds of situations, and it is incumbent upon all of us to listen to the call of God on our lives and respond as faithfully as we can. Sometimes, it’s staying home and taking care of house and kids. Sometimes, it’s running for national office. And sometimes, it’s something in between.
SNS raises an excellent point when he brings up 22 million single women. There was no such thing in the first century. Women were either under the protection of husbands or male relatives, or they were prostitutes. If the Bible is truly God’s living word – and I believe it is – then surely it speaks to their situations, too. Doesn’t it?
September 12, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I too had some “strong thoughts” after this interview. For me as well the most disconcerting part was how Baucham closed the interview about women in the home.
I too would love to hear Mark’s thoughts.
September 12, 2008 at 11:17 am
Bill I totally agree man. I was pretty disappointed by both of their hermeneutic’s. Feinberg’s came off pragmatic and Baucham came off borderline fundamentalist. Poor showing for the church in a post-Christian setting.
What was most disconcerting to me was how Baucham closed the interview – women’s places are at home and not in leadership. Pretty scary when you consider there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 22 million women who aren’t married. I guess they’re relegated to the fast food industry…
Mark I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.
September 12, 2008 at 9:21 am
Hoo boy, I hope my previous post didn’t turn this into a political blog!
I have seen this interview, and I do have some thoughts, which will have to wait until I’m off from work. Later!
September 12, 2008 at 9:01 am
I think there is confusion between the two realms of the family, church and the civil authority. The Rev. Baucham used Deborah as an example of judgment on the nation, forgetting that Israel was a theocracy, something the U.S. isn’t.
I don’t see any Biblical reason why Palin can’t have the role as a leader of the free world.