In a recent blog, Mike Seaver (a complementarian pastor) posits ten questions for egalitarians (for a complete reading of this blog, please reference http://rolecalling.blogspot.com/2008/07/semi-pragmatic-less-theological-open.html). Although I responded to the ten questions, for me the questions themselves (the construct) was more revealing and more thought-provoking than their individual contents. In other words, the worldview from which the questions arose brought a question to my mind that---at least to me---seems to be more piercing that the content of each question.

In the questions, Pastor Seaver seems to be approaching life from the viewpoint of being male. In other words, for him the beginning of all things is his maleness. Another blog from the CBMW website offered this comment: "If you meet Christ, you will meet the greatest of all men" (retrieved from http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Biblical-Manhood-and-the-Role-of-Mentoring on 7/25/08). Laid side by side (Pastor Seavers' blog and this comment by Dr. Peter Schemm, Jr.), I suddenly realized that the worldview of egals and comps might be completely different and that this difference in worldviews might be part of why we are so far apart doctrinally.

Take Dr. Schemm's statement: "If you meet Christ, you will meet the greatest of all men." How do you define the last word, "men"? I would define it as "human being." But for Dr. Schemm (and I believe for Pastor Seaver), the definition would be "male." I thought that this difference might reveal something very important. So I went to talk to my husband (who is obviously male) and asked him, "Do you see yourself as a Christian first or as a man first? In other words, which is more foundationally "you," being a man or being a Christian?"

And I think that becomes the issue. You see, I don't see myself first as a woman and then as a Christian. Rather, I see myself as a Christian who happens to be a woman, the woman part being much more incidental and unimportant. I see the woman part as being more of my fleshly nature which needs to pass away and my Christian part as being that which needs to become more Christ-like everyday. However, I think that comps see themselves as foundationally gendered; that their gender is something which is so inherently them that they must reclaim it; that when they are saved to a new life, they are saved as a male-Christian or a female-Christian and not simply as a Christian. And so, Jesus coming as a male becomes very important.

I thought about that. To be honest, it doesn't matter to me that Jesus came as a male. He could have come as a female and I wouldn't have reacted any differently to Him. There is a sense of genderlessness (for me) in God, God Who embodies all of both genders and who created both genders in His image. And so, when I read Dr. Schemm's statement---"If you meet Christ, you will meet the greatest of all men"---I read "If you meet Christ, you will meet the greatest of all people." Jesus is my role model. I am charged, as a believer, to imitate Him in every way. If, as a role model, He is decidedly male, then, as a believer, I am called to "imitate" maleness. Or I am left without a role model to imitate.

I choose to imitate Him!