Dear Bro, Don,
In the September, 2001, issue, in the “Youth Speaks” column, a book is mentioned entitled: “Be Ye Doers of the Word; A Practical Guide to Godly Living.” I have appreciated Bro. Ben Brushoff’s columns, including this one. I felt that his remarks were excellent and mature beyond his years. The book mentioned in his column had greatly troubled a young lady named Mary because of the opinions she gathered from it on the role of women. You made a parenthetical editorial comment that the book was not a Christadelphian publication. Unfortunately that is not correct. It is published by the Christadelphian Scripture Study Service in Australia, and was written by a committee of brethren in South Australia.
Although I did not care for the book myself, disagreed with many things in it, and can understand why Mary could perceive the book in the way she did, I believe that her perceptions about what the book said are exaggerated. I have not read the book through cover to cover, but I could not find a statement in it that came close to saying that a woman’s sole purpose on earth is to serve men. I could find no statement that came close to saying that it was a sin for a woman to go to work. I could find no statement in the book that said women are inferior to men. I think these were Mary’s perceptions of the book, not truly the stated opinions of its authors. The book does draw a distinction between the roles of male and female and warns of the dangers of modern worldly attitudes, and it suggests that strengthening the home and children should be a higher priority than an outside career or material wealth for sisters. Up to a point, these are all true, scriptural based principles. If taken to an extreme, they can be greatly misleading. I think the book made an attempt to find a balance, but I personally think that it did go too far in some areas and could too easily be understood in the harmful ways Mary perceived. The book does advocate a number of things that I do not believe, nor do I think they are generally shared in the ecclesia, and I could not recommend it. I am trying to strike a balance in my remarks between not recommending the book and yet defending it as not being nearly as bad as came across in Mary’s comments.
There are many things published by various Christadelphian groups that are controversial among the brotherhood. We have no “Imprimatur” that guarantees a particular book is free from error. I believe a free exchange of opinions is good. The issues presented in the book need discussion. There is usually something worth thinking about even in opinions that we disagree with. The problem comes when someone reads some such publication and assumes we are a monolithic group who all think alike on all subjects, or that anything printed in black and white reflects some “official” Christadelphian position.
Such monolithic thinking could only be achieved if we were to stop reading and studying the Bible for ourselves and substitute the thinking of someone else. That would be very bad indeed. There is room for disagreement among us on many issues as we each seek to serve God as best we can in our particular circumstances, and as we seek to better understand what God asks of us. The opinions of others on how we ought to live need often to be taken with a grain of salt. I would second the advice of Bro. Brinker hoff in his column that we should not let the opinions of others separate us from God or the ecclesia, but we should rather each do our best to help strengthen and improve the ecclesia.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One