(Woman) by nature (that is, by the ordinary law of God) is formed to obey; for the government of women has always been regarded by all wise persons as a monstrous thing..." (John Calvin)
(Tim, w/thanks to Jeff M.) It's worth noting how southern Presbyterianism's Union Theological Seminary has left the faith of her fathers for the heresies of her mothers.
Back when I was a minister in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA), I noted how "out there" the woman pastors were compared to the men pastors. Whether the issue was political, ecclesiastical, or theological, they brought a whole new level of error into the church that even apostate men hadn't given themselves to.
Eve is vulnerable. Can I get an "Amen" from a man who loves his mother, sisters, daughters, and wife?
Have you heard a sermon, lately, on the wife being "someone weaker, since she is a woman" (1Peter 3:7)? That it was not Adam, but Eve who was deceived (1Timothy 2:14)? On the Holy Spirit's delineation of "worldly fables fit only for old women" (1Timothy 4:7)? (The English Standard Version removes this text from Scripture.) Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, His Bride, and gave Himself up for Her.
Today, women who have been deceived are themselves deceiving. With the woman preachers of Trinity Broadcasting Network and Union (Presbyterian) Seminary, faithful shepherds must declare not simply that the doctrine is heretical, but that those deceived and deceiving are women. It's pertinent. This is one more indication of the truth of God's Word, that woman is not to teach or exercise authority over man.
This spawned by the news that Union Theological Seminary's 2010 Sprunt Lectures are to be given by Margaret R. Miles, emerita professor of Historical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkley, California. Being a woman, Professor Miles has written:
"Although theologians may have claimed that crucifixion scenes exhibited the extremity of God’s love for humans, it was scenes of the child sucking at the breast that spoke to people on the basis of their earliest experience." Prof. Miles tells us the breast was replaced by the cross when patriarchal Western Europeans “secularized the breast.” She doesn't like the cross because “it presents a violent act as salvific."
“The equation of love with heroic violence and suffering is typically a male-centered perspective (and) the value of the nursing breast as a symbol of God’s provision might need to be reconsidered in our own time … In societies in which violence is rampant on the street and in the media, the nursing virgin can perhaps communicate God’s love to people in a way that a violent image, the image of one more sacrificial victim, cannot.”
