Why Not Lady Church Ushers?

In the 5/23/14 edition of the Sword of the Lord, editor Shelton Smith lists those undersung yet essential ministries in the church in an article titled “The Preacher's Best Friend”. The first enumerated on this list are ushers.

Of these functionaries, Smith writes, “The men meet the folks coming in.” Smith then proceeds to list a number of responsibilities assigned to this position such as the distribution of bulletins, the finding of seats and the collection of offerings.

The wording itself raises a particular question. Must those filling this position be men? Why can't these individuals be a women?

In many independent and Fundamentalist churches, the deacons carry out these tasks. If so, such a gender specific pronoun would be understandable.

Such churches hold to the simplest interpretation of the text that the diaconal office should only be held by men according to I Timothy 2:12. However, by his own admission, Shelton Smith does not necessarily view deacon and usher as being synonymous.

He writes, “Our soul winners, bus workers, teachers, deacons should not feel left out here.” One might respond that in using the term “men”, Brother Smith was being a linguistic traditionalist in that the term “men” can grammatically include both men and women.

The other two church support ministries mentioned in the article are sound technicians and nursery workers. However, in connection with these, neither is referenced with gender specificity.

For example, sound technicians are referred to as “they” (a term that can include both men and women). Nursery workers are praised as “These men and women are the saints who attend other people's babies during Sunday school and church time.”

In defense of male-only ushers, it could be argued that these servants of the church might be called upon to carry out tasks best fulfilled by men. Ushers are on the front line of the church interacting with the public.

As such, limiting the position to men only cuts down on the possibility for hanky-panky on the part of flirtatious visitors or even sexual predators coming into the church. So if we are to be so uptight about untoward interactions between female ushers and male visitors, shouldn't we be as concerned about improper attraction or spats between a male usher and a female visitor or some lawsuit gold-digger attempting to make a buck off harassment or abuse allegations?

If the threat of this kind of scandal or outrage is to be a foremost preoccupation, then why would Shelton Smith approve of men being allowed to serve in the nursery? For is not molestation a greater evil than a momentary passing tingle or thrill someone might experience from a passing glance or smile in public with someone other than one's spouse.

If anything, wouldn't these potentialities necessitate female ushers to interact with female visitors and male ushers to interact with male visitors. Others will respond that only men should be ushers because it is commanded that women are to remain silent in church according to I Corinthians 14:34..

Verbal communication is at the heart of the usher's ministry as they great people and direct them to where they need to go. If that is the case, should women be forbidden from choir membership and (perhaps even more importantly) musical solos? For along with the pastor's sermon and Scriptural readings, music plays a pivotal role in conveying the doctrine and teaching of the church.

An additional argument could be made that only men should be ushers since these officers and volunteers are usually responsible for the collection of the offering. I am aware of no Scripture that forbids women from handling finances and currency. From the list of virtues and enterprises elucidated in Proverbs 31, it would seem that women of godly character would excel in just such an arena.

It will no doubt be retorted that money is dirty. As such, only burly, gruff men should handle something as filthy. If that is the case, why does it usually fall to women to toil in the kitchen before, after, and during the church suppers?

Scripture does indeed teach that men and women are distinct creations that each exhibit the creative nature and purpose of God in an unique manner. However, when determining what exactly that entails, the exegete must be careful to distinguish what exactly is there in the text from what may be a sincere yet single interpretation among several within a spectrum of acceptability.

By Frederick Meekins

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Pleiadian Republican No Different Than Other Ranking Thought Leaders

The Internet is having a good laugh at the Miami Herald’s endorsement of a candidate running in a Republican primary claiming she was abducted by extraterrestrials.

Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera believes that since she was a small child she has been visited numerous times by Pleiadians sharing with her a message that God is not so much a person as a universal energy.

Before carting her off for psychiatric evaluation, how is what she is professing appreciably different than what is constantly espoused by the media-political establishment?

On Friday’s, the History Channel broadcasts nothing but programming insisting that world religions and ancient cultures were founded by beings from that very portion of the celestial sphere and now that programming block has been replicated to repeat Sunday evenings on A&E.

George Lucas became a household name and made a boatload of money in the process producing blockbusters for the purposes of emphasizing this very same worldview about the nature of God.

Sophisticates will reply that such ideas are acceptable in the world of entertainment.

However, when it comes to actual political power, it should only be handed to those whose minds are down to earth and not so much lost in the stars.

Then perhaps these advocates of sanity will be as forceful in their opposition to federal money going to sponsor conferences in posh resorts where academics discuss the ramifications of extraterrestrial intelligence not so much as topic of dispassionate scientific curiosity but rather to propagandize how traditional theism is the philosophy that must be eradicated if the human species is to ever advance beyond our terrestrial limitations.

Mainstream journalism cannot have it both ways.

It cannot treat Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera as a pariah yet not compel Mitt Romney to come clean about the astrotheological presuppositions of his own Mormon faith positing that God was once a man from the planet Kolob and that you too can one day become the deity of your own little corner of the cosmos.

By Frederick Meekins

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Elites Mock Those Taking The Threats They've Harped Seriously

Liberals hate no one more than those that take the implications of progressivist ideas seriously.

Advocates of that particular ideology no doubt ranked among the foremost ridiculing President Trump's proposal of a new branch of the armed forces for now referred to as the “Space Force” that will be dedicated to defending against threats from beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

But are not Hollywood leftists the ones making significant livelihoods promoting the message that the foremost security challenges will eventually originate from that particular operational theater?

Space-centered invasions or conflicts have been the topics of some of cinema's greatest blockbusters.

The History Channel has become so identified with extraterrestrials that one episode of South Park spoofed a documentary on the network suggesting that Thanksgiving actually commemorates a meeting between the Pilgrim forefathers and ancient aliens.

Sophisticates will sneer that Trump's Space Force is not intended to take on an unidentified flying saucer menace but rather America's own earth-based geopolitical adversaries.

Fair enough, but are not our own Progressives the ones harping what a renewed threat Russia poses and how President Trump before now did not take that particular regime seriously?

By Frederick Meekins

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Hit & Run Commentary #113

Apparently part of the stink surrounding the Roseanne Barr kerfuffle is that George Soros is a Holocaust survivor.  He survived it allegedly by ratting out his fellow Jews.

Too bad the elites jacked out of shape about Roseanne Barr’s George Soros tweet do not get as upset about the machinations of Soros to collapse the global economy and remake the world order in his preferred image.

So if we are to have sympathy for women that kill their babies during drug induced stupors, why not for Roseanne Barr who might have been experiencing a similar sort of mental compromise?

So if ABC is taking a hardline stance that the distinction between humans and apes is inviolable and sacrosanct, should we expect the promulgation of anti-evolution creation science in all of its programming?

If man is nothing more than an ape as is propounded in the minds of children from the first day of pre-school up through the final PhD exam, wasn’t Roseanne’s remarks a simply statement of ontological fact rather than intended insult?

So if Roseanne can be fired for equating Valerie Jarrett with an ape, shouldn’t ABC’s corporate overlord Disney renounce ever penny it has made from Marvel Comics?  For as part of their philosophical foundation, that entire fictional universe holds that man is nothing but an ape advanced to the level of intelligence by extraterrestrials unable to mind their own business.

So is ABC really outraged that a verbally uninhibited comedian equated a human being with just another sort of primate or are they afraid of a Black Lives Matter horde rampaging through the corporate headquarters?

If Supergirl producers hold that guns are not necessary to make a person powerful and more importantly right, doesn’t that actually make Lex Luthor the hero of the Superman saga in attempting to warn humanity of the danger to Earth posed by Superman?  Though it is a different company, applying this logic, isn’t Iron Man’s pro-Zachovia Accords position correct over that of Captain America’s in that no unsupervised civilian should be allowed to run around with superpowerss?

If men are no longer supposed to like women in swimsuits and evening gowns, shouldn’t women be forced to settle for men with Duck Dynasty grooming habits?  Similarly, no longer should Leonard and Penny on “The Big Bang Theory” be the material of comedic fodder but instead the social norm if these wenches insisting appearances shouldn’t matter want to be consistent.

Outrage has erupted over Roseanne Barr retweeting a negative comment regarding Valerie Jarrett after promising to make amends for what she had done.  Given that there is no likelihood that Roseanne will be reemployed by ABC, why shouldn’t the comedian feel free to speak her mind in regards to what she perceives as a legitimate point of public policy?  The retweeted comments had nothing this time to do with race but rather dealt with the ideological repercussions of Jarret’s pro-Islamist sympathies.

In light of Paige Patterson’s controversial comments, Baptist functionaries are urging abused woman to leave the house and call the police.  Will they be offering similar advice to abused men as well? Critics will respond that not that many men are abused in comparison to the number of mistreated women.  But in regards to these sorts of intrusive public awareness campaigns we are constantly beaten over the head with the refran that one is one too many. And apparently one instance of bad advice that boiled down to a difference of opinion was enough for Paige Patterson to lose his job as seminary president.

The career of Southern Baptist functionary Paige Patterson has largely been destroyed as a result over things that he has said that are for the most part a matter of opinion considered to be bad advice.  Foremost among these alleged statements is that an abused spouse ought to remain with and reconciled to the partner perpetrating such mistreatment. Following the royal wedding, Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry is being heralded as a foremost homilist on the topic of love.  But if the prelate threatens to sue congregations wanting to withdraw from the Episcopal Church over doctrinal reasons, shouldn’t he be viewed as bad as Patterson for insinuating that a spouse ought to remain at all costs with a partner that beats them and denied basic support should the partner actually muster the courage to leave an unhealthy situation?

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear critically tweeted of the Vice President’s oration before that particular ecclesiastical association that its identity is found in the Gospel and its unity in the Great Commission, not in political platforms.  Perhaps Pastor Greear could point out where where anything the Vice President articulated was at variance with the dictates of Scripture. If the Convention’s renewed rallying cry is to be no identity but the Gospel and no unity but the Great Commission, does Greear intend to put the smackdown on the likes of Russell Moore when the preening ethicist veers off into his promotion of minority identity politics and bashing of elderly Whites?

Lawyers in the Parkland school massacre are insisting that the aloof deputy was not under a legal obligation to intervene.  As such, isn’t that validation that the greatest number possible in general and educators in particular should be allowed to publicly carry concealed firearms?

Why are violations of U.S. immigration law the only crimes over which there is discernible outrage regarding the separation of children from parents?

Do Vatican functionaries intend to berate the Mexican government as well if that nation does not allow children allegedly born in the U.S. to return to Mexico along with their parents? As a predominantly Catholic nation, one would think that an institution that constantly harps against the corrosive moral effects of materialism (except in regards to its own posh holdings) would find that actually the preferable solution.  Unless of course that interferes with that globalist organization’s centuries old objective of undermining the American people as a defensive bulwark against that elite’s particular variety of planetary tyranny.

Too bad liberals are not as concerned about busting up American families as they are about illegal immigrant families.  For urban populations (and increasingly ones that could be referred to as trailer park trash as well) have essentially procreated themselves into squalor largely as a result of a welfare system that lavishes resources upon fecund relationships where frankly poppa was a rolling stone.

Regarding these liberals jacked out of shape about children separated from illegal alien parents. Do they complain as loudly about these WOMMMMMEN's shelters that despise men so much that they separate sons in their early teens from their mothers?

A school in Virginia once named after Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is to be renamed in honor of Barack Obama.  So if the new name were to offend a miniscule segment of the population known to destroy other people’s property until they get their way (for this is ultimately why the name of the school is being changed in the first place), will educational authorities decide to change the name yet again?

If there are no excretory orifice countries as we were admonished following one presidential exclamation, why is there now a  horde of families we are now expected to extend a welcome to irrespective of whether or not established procedure was adhered to?

If it is acceptable to heckle an a Secretary of a federal agency outside of a restaurant, why is it not acceptable to behave as boisterously outside of an abortion mill?

Did planetary elites get as worked up into a froth over a German homeschool family denied asylum fearing European authorities would seize their children?

It might be one thing to require online businesses to pay sales tax to their respective states. However, in light of the Supreme Court decision just handed down, does this mean someone that sells over Ebay, Etsy, or Amazon will be required to file for tax licenses in every jurisdiction now where someone might be living that buys a second hand trinket from your trashpile?

Pastor Chris Sonksen is suggesting that up to 80% of those that attend church should up and quit because they take organized religion far to casually.  He writes, “...What if everyone served in their God’given purpose?” That might sound ideal. But what if the church you attend is so small that there is no opportunity for you to be allowed the opportunity to fulfill what one believes to be their God-given purpose other than that of a wallet to be emptied into the collection plate?

This kicking out of a business a patron where the product offered and requested does not violate directly the beliefs of the proprietor and propagandists justify the action on the grounds that individuals holding to beliefs at variance with those imposed by elites should not be welcomed in society is an early manifestation of the Antichrist spirit that will refuse to grant the essential provisions of existence to those refusing to bend a knee to the globalist regime by refusing to take the Mark as foretold in Revelation 13.

At a Capitol Hill press conference, Nancy Pelosi opined that it is immoral to build a border wall.  Instead, she insisted, it is better to build a bridge. Such would facilitate rather than impinge upon access  In previous decades, Americans could pretty much roam the Capitol corridors as they saw fit without being confined to some visitor center.  Now access is severely restricted. In light of what could be considered a spirit of glasnost, does Pelosi intend to advocate legislation or alterations in internal policy negating such restrictions or to remove barriers inhibiting access to the facility’s grounds?  After all, Americans have more of a right to the Capitol they pay for and from which are promulgated so many of the directives controlling their lives than non-citizens failing to comply with duly constituted statutes to violate the border with impunity.

By Frederick Meekins

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