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Weekly Roundup – The Extra Reading Material Edition

Well, in case you missed it. At the start of this week, the Huffington Post, published the following little story:

A university’s Christian society has banned women from speaking at events and teaching at meetings, unless they are accompanied by their husband, it has been revealed.

The Bristol University Christian Union (BUCU) had originally decided women would be allowed to teach at meetings after their international secretary resigned in protest, but the group has since changed its policy.

Read more on Huffington Post.

The resulting “upset” in the news and on Twitter prompted the following strongly worded press release from Bristol CU via UCCF:

Bristol University Christian Union (BUCU) deplores the recent exaggerations and misrepresentations in some parts of the media of its position on women’s ministry in the church.

It is well known that Christian churches differ on this question. BUCU is not a church, but a student society, so it has never had a formal policy on women’s ministry.

In recent months, the Executive Committee have been exploring ways in which BUCU can best accommodate members with divergent and strongly held convictions, while expressing our unity as Christian believers. In line with our basic position throughout that process, which has not been widely publicised, the Executive Committee now wish to make clear that we will extend speaker invitations to both women and men, to all BUCU events, without exception.

BUCU is utterly committed to reflecting the core biblical truth of the fundamental equality of women and men.

Well. The story seemed to calm down after that. Then an interesting little article appeared on the Guardian:

Continue reading “Weekly Roundup – The Extra Reading Material Edition”

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The “Burn The Heathens”* Checklist

So. The Huffington Post have published the follow this evening: Bristol University’s Christian Union Bans Women From Speaking At Meetings, which includes the following:

The Huffington Post UK has seen the email sent out by president Matt Oliver to all BUCU members which said: “It is ok for women to teach in any CU setting… However we understand that this is a difficult issue for some and so decided that women would not teach on their own at our weekly CU meetings, as the main speaker on our Bristol CU weekend away, or as our main speaker for mission weeks.

“But a husband and wife can teach together in these.”

In the light of a few of the debates, and upset that has erupted, I’d like to offer the following checklist, of equipment and attitudes, to anyone thinking about staying in and “Burning The Heathens*” via Twitter / Facebook.

  1. Pitchfork (Sharpened)
  2. Axes
  3. Burning torches
  4. Bible Teaching from someone you agree with.
  5. Lack of patience.
  6. Lack of willingness to discuss.
  7. Don’t ask why
  8. Fuel for the fire.
  9. Don’t check if this happening elsewhere.
  10. Acceptance.

With thanks to @SeanUSX for the inspiration.

Please remember this list can be useful for any time we need to go out and burn people*.

Interested in the Bristol CU situation? Here is some further reading:

*No one involved with The Church Sofa website supports the idea of actually burning people. Thats not nice, and you would deserve the full force of the law on you if you were to do sometime like that.