House Church Talk - speaking

[Rick Johnson]

Let me say a word here.  I will try to keep it short and to the point.  

Everybody I have interacted with where the women are not allowed to
speak ends up being a bizarre little cultish assembly of maybe one or
two families.  NO, I am not saying any of you here are in that category.
I am just saying I have seen it on MANY occasions.

If we were all perfect in Christ, maybe this silence thing would work.
However, I have seen over and over where this turns into a bondage
issue.

For instance, we worshipped with a few families about 8 months ago.  The
elders of their group immediately sent me an email explaining how I
should not allow my wife to speak and we were more than welcome to come
back if we chose. (there were 3 families so I guess it was just the 3
men who were elders)  I explained my position and declined to further
worship with them.  No harm no foul.

This weekend, I ran into one of the families.  The man of the house said
hello.  I tried to be polite and address his wife and kids.  They only
looked to daddy to see if they could speak.  My wife tried to say hello
to the lady of the house and she just smiled, nodded her head and that
was it. 
When we left, we both paused and did not say anything for awhile.  Then,
on cue, we both said, "That was weird."  It was very sad to see this
entire family placed under the thumb and fear of this man.  It sure
sounds like bondage to me. 

It reminds me of the Bill Gothard and his Institute in Basic Youth
Conflicts.  On the surface it sounds fine, however digging a little
deeper, you find it is very disturbing.  
http://www.pfo.org/evol-fad.htm
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/1999-02-18/feature.html/page1.html
http://www.midwestoutreach.org/journals/bill_gothard.htm
http://www.pfo.org/bgothard.htm


Now that I have stepped on MANY toes, I will say, if you want to keep
your women silent, so be it.  I will not get in your way.  That's well
above my pay grade.  However, in our fellowship the women are a greatly
appreciated part of the body and we would be much the less if they were
gagged.

RJ

-----Original Message-----
From: House Church Talk -bounces at housechurch.org
[mailto:House Church Talk -bounces at housechurch.org] On Behalf Of
jesusislord343 at juno.com
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 8:29 AM
To: House Church Talk  at housechurch.org
Subject: Re: House Church Talk -  speaking

On Thu, 13 May 2004 08:32:38 -0400 "TIM POOLE" <pooletim at hotmail.com>
writes:
> I have to agree with you on this Clair. Bondage is alive and well, its
just that some chains have hc written on them.

Dear Tim,
Greetings in Christ's holy name!  I certainly understand your concerns. 
However, I would respectfully ask you to show any evidence from the word
of God that the Lord desires us to view the matter of the sisters
remaining silent in the assembly meetings in such derogatory terms, as a
terrible and unnecessary form of "bondage."  Have you not been poisoned
against this portion of the word of God by those who have negatively
characterized it?