“Old traditional thinking, which comes out of the Dark Ages and bad hermeneutics. They misinterpret women being in submission, women keeping quiet in church and women not having anything to say over men. They take all of those out of context and therefore they have kept women in suppression.
“It gradually opened up. First women could be Sunday school teachers. Then it opened up [that] women could be music directors. Then it opened up … women finally could be associate pastors or assistant pastors on staff.
“It’s when you begin to get into governance that [it] becomes an issue. [A woman] could not be a deacon in the old system or [a] board member. That’s governance. So when you begin to get to senior pastor, [women] couldn’t because it was governance.
“I see that glass ceiling breaking, people have matured more in understanding. Now that we have people that are able to go back to the original language and study the Scripture rather than just regurgitating what the theologians coming out of the dark ages [told] us. Actually the first commentary on Scripture was written just before the Dark Ages came to an end, and that commentary was the commentary that Luther and Calvin … used. It’s just been perpetuated.”
Naomi Dowdy is resident apostle,
Trinity Christian Centre in Singapore
Founder and President
of Global Leadership Network
Founder of Global Covenant Network
Founder of Theological Center for Asia
Web site
Phone: (214) 491-7749
