READER'S EXCHANGE

 

Since reading your paper I've come to realize that there are others out there who are struggling with the same questions I struggle with. That is encouraging. I don't feel alone anymore. Your articles have helped me to get a grip on what is really important, that being my relationship to Christ and to others as I serve him. For many years I tried to prove to God that I was worthy of his love by doing all the right things, and it left me empty and doubtful that I was really a Christian. Thank God, I at last got free of legalism and found my way to Christ. Your paper has helped. I've never been so excited about the Christian life. It's wonderful to be free in Christ! —Gail Brummett, LaPlace, LA.

The other day as I was making application for a D. Min. program and was asked to name the people who had had a major influence on my thinking, I was compelled to name you and Carl Ketcherside. I want to thank you for the way you have ministered to so many of us and for helping us to open our minds and hearts to those who may differ from us. My beginnings were in the Christian Church and Churches of Christ. I attended Abilene Christian College, and while there, you and Carl Ketcherside came to my apartment to speak to a number of graduate students. —Merritt Watson, Bethany Christian Church (Disciples), Arapahoe, NC.

I would appreciate knowing if female deacons have ever been common in churches of Christ and why there is a gap between the teaching of the scholars and the practice of the church. It seems from my reading that female deacons were the norm in the thinking of many church of Christ leaders of the 19th and 20th century. Those that I have read that favor or encourage female deacons include Alexander Campbell, J. M. Barnes, Tolbert Fanning, Robert Milligan, Moses Lard, David Lipscomb, J. W. McGarvey, Isaiah Grubbs, David King, and more recently, C. R. Nichol, J. Ridley Stroop, J. D. Thomas, Tom Olbricht, J. W. Roberts, and Carl Spain. I personally believe there were female deacons in the early church, and that we are going to have to face some hard decisions on this question in the future. —J. Stephen Sandifer, Southwest Central Church of Christ, Houston, TX.

(The reason you find virtual unanimity on the matter of deaconnesses in the primitive churches is that the relevant passages make it clear that both men and women served as deacons, which, interestingly enough, is the same word for minister or servant. And yet one can hardly find a Church of Christ today that has women as well as men deacons. Here we have the sociological influence, or an instance of where our culture has impacted our practice more than what the Bible actually teaches. The Church of Christ, certainly in terms of leadership, is a man's church. In spite of the Bible we have denied women their rightful place just as our culture in general has. —Ed.).