Thread by @sometimesalight

Read this article on birthrates being dependent on valuing the full humanity of women beyond their contributions to the marketplace.

Now, think about what this means for the Church as the family of God:

foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/25/how…

How we answer Qs about gender in Church depend a great deal on how we understand things like work, family, success, etc.

What we're really struggling w/ is how to define & pursue flourishing

One thing that has scuttled comp/egal debate of last few decades is that it inordinately focuses on the Q of "jobs" & "roles." This is completely understandable b/c that's exactly how surrounding society thinks about the Q.

In our society, value is determined by contribution to the marketplace & success is measured in income. Naturally then the fight for equality emerges in Qs of equal pay, workplace reprentation, etc.

If we're not careful, this becomes the lens by which we evaluate our value & place in the church as well. One *could* argue that this value system is major contributing factor in debates about female ordination AND megachurch celebrity pastors.

(I understand that debates about ordination can be more nuanced than this, but in their popular forms, they often borrow from marketplace paradigms. In part b/c clergy careerism is so well established as norm.)

But back to the article... Women flourish best in all their giftedness--both biologically & more intangibly--when they exist in cultures that recognize their full humanity & don't reduce them to workers.

Funny thing: Men flourish best in those cultures, too.

So what if the way forward in gender debates is to question how we evaluate a person's worth & contributions? What if what we need is to re-evaluate our priorities?

If this data is correct, the way families & societies flourish is by honoring the whole person--by valuing men as men & women as women & all as human beings. Is it a stretch to say that the Church would flourish the same way?

If this data is correct, the way forward does not lie w/ gender traditionalism (as we've experienced it in the west) or careerism. It lies w/ honoring the imago Dei of both men & women, including the unique ways we bring life into the world & sustain it.