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June 21, 2023
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And do you acknowledge that the Bible contradicts itself over and over again? If Southern Baptists can ignore the biblical fact that women played numerous leadership roles than I guess you can too. Whatever suits the current agenda, right?

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David Brooks has always been a go to columnist for me. I was so disappointed to have missed him at Skidmore. As for the first article, I have no appropriate words.

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The tyranny of their fundamentalism outweighs whatever good these religious movements purport to provide. When will folks stop supporting organizations that promote repression as a path to “enlightenment”?

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Yes!

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One reader replied this morning that the Southern Baptists resembled the Taliban with this decision.

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sadly, isn't this true of many 'cristians' and 'cristian' religions

I can't believe EVERYONE in the taliban (Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist ) is evil

but

I think the same of the fundamentalists and evangelical cristians.. yet when you see how they must ignore the teachings of the bible to support hmpy trympy.. then you know they ARE one with the taliban

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If ten years ago anyone had asked me where we would be in the future, it wouldn't be here. Amazing how a decade can set us back in time so solidly.

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I was thinking this indirectly.

The election of Obama gave way to MORE racism.. and usually from republicans who said racism was over, as they suppressed the voting rights of people of color

and after the last midterms, when younger voters - voted for democrats what did the gQp do? suggest raising the voting age.

I can't help but think if Hilary Clinton had been elected, the amount of misogyny that would exist --- and there so much as it is.

I know it isn't apt to compare republicans to Nazi's, but the only way the gQp exists is through hate.. and generally the hate is aimed at a group of people

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Women of WW I & II books I recommend

Code Girls

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34184307-code-girls

this is about the women who worked to break the codes of the Japanese and Germans

The Radium Girls

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31409135-the-radium-girls

Not exactly a war book, but they painted radium onto watches to be seen at night

another code breakers = Navajo's

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/175395.Code_Talker?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=CK4Up9z6IW&rank=1

so often the case is when Women or Minorities are hero, they are not remembered..

I guess white men (and in the baptist church black men) are kind of fragile when it comes to accepting the efforts of others

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Ken, thanks for reporting about the Southern Baptist convention. A depressing story but information that is important to know about.

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Certainly not an organization I regularly follow, but since I was in New Orleans and see these nice people everywhere, it was kind of shocking. I just wanted to ask each and everyone one of them, “What do you have against women.

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“That number startled me, especially considering the debauchery you often see on Bourbon Street. Consider that last year the Baptists met near Disneyland.”

I guess Disney has gotten too “woke” for them. Southern Baptists make us Methodists look like Unitarians. Northern Baptists do as well as far as I know. Then again, we have our own problems, but we do have lots and lots of women pastors. God bless for that!

Aside, Maury Thompson doesn’t seem to understand the concept of retirement, to the betterment of us all.

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Maury provides that critical element to local journalism - institutional memory. It is invaluable.

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Frankly, I get as tired of saying this as people are tired of hearing me say it but we in Warren County are not very different from paternalistic and misogynist groups such as the Southern Baptists or the Taliban. America is better than Afghanistan for sure, but that isn’t saying a lot. Women are treated to verbal and psychological abuse, beaten, stabbed, shot at alarming rates in America, in NY, in Warren County. Women are very poorly treated even when in elected positions of leadership. It takes a lot of guts for a woman to run for public office here, but even just going to work every day can be depressing, knowing and expecting the treatment by others.

Sure, there can be legitimate disagreement over ideas, decisions, etc of others not based in any way on identity of any sort, but if women won’t tell you flat out that we have a serious problem then they are pretty sure you are a perpetrator of the continuing problem. Or they are part of the problem themselves.

Because of this atmosphere we lose the valuable input of a large percentage of the population. Forget taxes, forget paying for social services, forget interest on the debt, forget even the costs of maintaining a massive military - the greatest cost to us is the value we lose in the human capital we prevent from achieving the simple goal of being treated as equals.

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I should note that as an Afghan American, having lived in Afghanistan and in America, and as former chair of Queensbury Democratic Committee I have a lot of insight on this topic from perspectives most do not get to see.

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All good points.

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This is very similar to what is happening with the United Methodist Church right now.

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Both of our daughters were married by a female minister. Should we now be considering their marriage to be null and void? How Christian of these Baptists!

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As a retired American Baptist(formerly Northern Baptist) pastor, I grieve over the decision by the SBC to expel churches who have women in leadership positions. I am grateful to be in a denomination that advocates for women in ministry. My last pastorate was in a multi-staff church, and when the associate pastor position was open, the search committee and I would intentionally seek a woman to fill the position, one reason being that she could be a model for other women and especially young girls as equal participants with men in the community of faith.

Unfortunately, biblical literalists cherry pick the Scriptures and ignore those passages that affirm the worth of women and their prominent place in the Gospels and the ministry of Jesus, as well as in the life of the early church. They ignore the leadership roles of women like Lydia in the Philippian church or Phoebe in the Roman church. They ignore Paul’s affirmation that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”

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Thank you for this article. It is scary as hell. Made me think of another group that fostered horrible hate from underneath white sheets. I wonder if things were really ever moving in a direction of equality and respect, away from the burning hatreds of the past. It seems that may have never been happening, it was just underground and Trumps behavior empowered people who had these types of attitudes to move back into the open. Scary as hell. I hope a huge paper picks up this great article. It is important that more people see it. I hope it makes them as uncomfortable as is does me.

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On Point this morning had on their program a woman pastor whose Church decided to leave the southern baptists after their proclamation. She spoke clearly about the handpicking of single quotes to justify their action, their refusal to put the quote in any context, their misreadings...and her church's decision to keep their female pastors and leave the Church. And then one of the men supporting the ban on women pastors spoke very much like men against women getting the right to vote. Probably very much like those condemning girls being educated...or blacks voting or.... ...Basically men wanting power. I think Jimmy Carter left the Church when they repeated that women should be subservient to men. Apparently they had used the Bible to defend slavery but then retracted that position. They played a clip of one of the women who had been sexually assaulted by the clergy who was attacked and threatened when spoke ...It's really the same story of those wanting power-- threatening those who want equality and justice....and the need to resist their definitions, interpretations, misogany, patriarchal power....

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I am assuming they also support book banning. They will pretty soon come out against women going to school and learning to read. Upsetting that these are Americans.

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