By way of introductions. Our fourth panelist is on his way downstairs. But let me just just make some brief introductions and give you a feel for what the panel is basically going to be. You've already met our speaker for this morning, Dr. Katie Cannon, who comes to us as the associate professor of Christian ethics from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And to her right and your left is the Reverend Al Diana Flournoy, whose artwork you can enjoy over here. She's a very talented and she is the assistant pastor at the Charlotte Temple A.M.E. Zion Church here in Atlanta. Skipping over our empty seat to our fourth panelist, we have the Reverend Brian K Blunt, who is a Ph.D. candidate. And he graciously consented to to take a short pause in revising his dissertation, which has to be done this week to join us in this panel. And I am just so pleased that he's here with us. He is a minister in the Presbyterian Church. We're trying to have as many denominations as possible represented here. And our fourth panelist, who is making his way, even as I speak, is is that the Dr. Michael Harris, who is the pastor at Queen Street Baptist Church here in Atlanta. And and the format for the panel will be basically, we will have each panelist give about a two or three minute somewhat introduction to their experience of the issues of gender, clergy, women and clergymen, issues and dialog. After each panelist has had an opportunity to do that, then we will basically have an open discussion among all of us about the issues as we see them. So with that, I would ask, we will start at this end and just kind of work our way down and participate in the discussion. We'll begin with Dr. Canon and Reverend Flournoy, Dr. Harris, and finally, Reverend Blunt.

I'd like to just use my 2 minutes to talk autobiographically about what I understand to be the issues in ministry. One of the things that I discovered in Kansas City this past November at the American Academy of Religion meeting is that I'm considered first generation, along with J.D. Otis Roberts and a lot of other people who are almost 70 years old. I was born in 1950, and so my colleagues and peers are people like Selma Blair, who was like 72, 73, and Emily Gibson is about 75. So in the press, I was the first black woman to be ordained as such in church in 1974. I did my theological training and I can see it. I'm saying to Vivian and Bill as we were coming out from the hotel this morning and we were talking, I was saying that 20 years ago, 1971, when I wrote in seminary, one third of the guys seminary, we had just come back from Vietnam or in similar to keep from going to Vietnam. The other third were in seminary because they'd been identified as born preachers by the time they were four years old. So they were Bible thumping men and they quoted Scripture for everything. And then there was this group of four black single women who were 20, 21 years old. We just walked out of college and they kept saying, How did they get here?

20 years ago, when women went to seminary, everybody knew. We all went to seminary to get husbands. No woman could ever be serious about theological education. I went to seminary to get a master's in religious education because I had majored in elementary ed and Jim Costen who's now president of ITC told me with a master's in religious education, the only thing I could do was work at the YWCA. They didn't even allow black people to attend the YWCA in my hometown. We couldn't even go to the front door, the back door or the side door. So I knew that getting a master's was not in religious education, but in a job that could not even enter the building would not be what I needed to do. So he directed me to get a degree in Master of Divinity, and I'll always be grateful for his foresight because he knew it was time for Black women to be ordained to the word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church. And we had not seen a black woman who was theologically trained in 1971.

So the issues I mean, my own conversation about being a woman in ministry and not I remember black women would come down from union and from Yale and Harvard. They would try to talk to us about sex and believe that all those, quote, political systems, they must have a really hard up. No, we didn't have I mean, I didn't have a conversation about being referred to as brethren. I go back and read my papers. I wrote all the pronouns, the masculine. We were the only seminary in the country that shut down when they had the Attica massacre of the 200 credits of North America. So it was a great time to be black. But being a woman was not part of our gender. It was a time when James Collins book, which was published in Canon, had just come out. We'd all been indoctrinated in the church and we were question whether Christianity was a slave religion or the opium of the people. So we were and every paper we had to write about mark to.

Market.

Hydrogen because so whatever we were reading, we had to say, How is this relevant to the black church community? So it was the best place for me to be in terms of questioning. I went to seminary. Not if a God struck me this kind of person. I did not go to seminary holier than thou or anything. I went to seminary. I was, as I say, a party animal and I couldn't understand. My friends all said to me, Kate, I believe you can do this, but whatever you do, don't ever get happy and try to see that. Can't carry too. But I went this time I am a skeptic. I want to know even I've been brought up in the church all my life. I was a black nationalist, I was an actor, I was a revolutionary, and it was nation care. I would be covered up my dashiki, my step up sandal and a black outfit. And so black I like theology is I felt called on a regular basis. What's my saving grace to be in biology to this thing? And when I took preaching was the hardest class I've ever taken. And to this day, I, as my master, as we got clocks method and I go around the country teaching hammer letters because he was the greatest competition that I've ever run across. And so I will be speaking at the Academy in December Teaching Crock method. But it was in preaching where I realized what it meant to be a woman in ministry, because when I knew it, I didn't think, even though I knew I was the human being that God calls people clay, be that God does not call people above life, but in life, Oh, it was something about sending the prophet that was the most terrifying for me. And I knew I was not a perfect person. So how can that perfect people preach? And now I realized I was the only woman in the preaching class. And I hung out with the brothers all the time. And they I knew all their sins, my free service. But they told me I have my love. And it's like. So then I realized, you don't have to be perfect to be a better man. But then it was like, Whoa, I'm a person. I think you fit well among the people I live in. So I had to go talk to the press or counselor because at the time, in 1970s, black women, we knew the black church was the only place that the black community had ever had. And the face, it is the one place that black men have been able to be black men. Was that not a pastor Was. I'm not a matriarch, but I'm not emasculated. It's I accepted compliments. So I went to Dr. Pugh with the counselor and he said, Go ask the brothers. We made the class. And I said to the brothers, How do you feel about me preaching, let's say, more power to the planet from abuse of power, You go to it. But they never thought I would talk to them and preaching. And so that was the way it was. We were just one big kind of thing, you know, and it was not a problem. And I think, see, when I was there 20 years.

Ago.

It was not until I got to junior seminary where I class was because most of the brothers were similar. We were working class brothers. We all came from the northeast area, basically, and we were just we were like first generation of get masters. We'd also been a first generation college, and that was the first generation of families to get master's degrees. I got to junior seminary. I was in a bourgeois situation and I went to the Black Caucus. I went to the Women's Caucus meeting, which was why you wouldn't talk to me like, I can't relate to this. I went to a Black Caucus meeting and the black brother said to me, We want you to just about how the hell God calls you to ministry. I ran back to the White House. I had never had to defend myself as a woman, and I didn't know the first thing to be. If someone had said to me, just like, How the hell got to call a black person, my parents would train me all my life having to do that, but I had no clue. How do you defend being born female? And so that's when I got the consciousness of what it meant to be a woman in a patriarchal society. In a patriarchal church. I'll have one to say one question. Well, I guess I'm the. Counterpart to Dr. Cannon. I was thinking about this ever since I've been invited to be here. The main thing I was thinking about was that I wouldn't get defensive and angry because that's what I usually do when invited to interact concerning women in the ministry. And that anger is not so much at the question itself, but at the work that needs to be done in the black church. And the fact that I suffered so much in the church. And that I have a calling and a burning desire to be there so that others don't go through what I go through. And then I went out and got the training that was necessary to do that, and then turned to my church and had to pretend to accept female ministers. We were the first to ordain females in this country, but we are the last two you. And so I said, How will I come down here and deal with this question as to whether or not I even have a right to be a minister when I know the calling on my life and I see the suffering going on around me and I know that I now have the skills necessary to deal with that and to help deal with that and to help move the church forward on a more holistic level about pastoring. And I am held back by teaching antiquated teaching that has taught my denomination so well that in many cases the women help the men that. And it is a frustrating situation to be. Someone just asked me why I'm in Atlanta and the reason I'm going to America, some of you know, is that I was hired in a position in Washington, D.C. as a pastoral counselor, assistant pastor, and the church pastor came down to see me. Everything was fine. We were getting on well. He flew me to Washington, D.C., and the people loved me, and they kept asking him, Where did you find this lady that we can relate to, etc., etc.. The next thing I knew, I was out. No job, no money, no anything. So I came to Atlanta because I have a family. And this pastor in Washington, by the way, decided to tell me what my calling was. But I didn't have a calling. I had wasted eight years of my life going to school and training to be a pastoral caregiver, that my true calling and only calling was the Northeast and that the poor fellow could not see that art was just a part of my ministry. He didn't even notice who I came and what I paid. So I'm here at Atlanta and God is good and I am growing and I am working my way towards coming to seminary in September because I will, because of my background, because of who I am and what I stand for. I was accepted into a post-graduate training program in pastoral, clinical, pastoral education, and I have two years of specialized training before I got seminary. Years are important when you get high when committing suicide in the hospital. But you have to stand there, think, well, you know, God will provide, etc., etc., with their hands tied because personally they don't know what to do. And that's all right. The pastor is not supposed to know what to do. I know the best case, but you're supposed to know how to refer them on and how to assist in that way. So I don't. I guess that's enough about me. You see where I'm really coming from. I know what the scripture says about female ministers. I know what it's this says about submitting that self and man being the head. And personally I believe in man the head to the degree that he is Christ like to me and to me that involves partnership, that does not involve subjection, that does not involve one upmanship involved. Yes, I know all of that. But I also know that when I was out there struggling in the world and I went to the pastor, not one man, and got absolutely no help to cope with the situation that I was dealing with, to build me spiritually to help me grow. And I frankly just don't feel it's good to see it again. To me, it's illogical and I cannot imagine that the God that I serve who has brought me this far and so much to me wants to tie my hands and not allow me to speak for him and not allow me to preach his word. And I cannot believe that the word is different or less acceptable when it comes from my mouth than it is right from my brother's mouth.

They allowed me to stand outside the assembly to stretch my legs. I've been sitting for a long time before I got here. First, let me thank you, Terry Walker, for inviting me to share this. Jerry Ward works at St Church and he leads our way to night Bible studies and he's an excellent teacher. Some years ago. As much as I like Terry. If he had asked me some years ago to participate in a conference of this particular nature, I would have declined. I would have said to him, I would rather not. And the fact that I am here sharing it is not only because of my affection for Terry Walker this massive, but also because the Lord has brought me along the way. I was born in Athens, Georgia, and raised primarily in Louisville, Kentucky. And anyone who has lived for a while in Kentucky or studied or what have you knows that in the black Baptist community in Kentucky, the idea of women in the ministry is not something that is discussed, debated or even dealt with. Basically, it is considered to be non-existent and women should not preach. And I was raped. I was raised in that kind of ecclesiastical environment. And for the longest time, that was very much a part of me. I could stand here and declare that, you know, it was never a part of me. But honestly, it makes me say, yes, it was. And I think that's one reason why Terry asked me to come. Maybe I am one of the few brave men who was bad, and we'll see how it used to be. I was the one who, when the issue of women in ministry became talked about, felt that it was more or less an extension of the women's rights movement, as opposed to God's moving in his own divine way. And all of the explanations that were told to me were told to me from the perspective of God can do this. Can't God do this? And of course God can do anything He want. And I acknowledge that. But as one who was raised as a conservative, as one who looked to Scripture for direction, I was trying to get rather difficult getting some type of scriptural handle. Of course, a lot of the women who would talk to me would say, Well, you got to relax. Paul was a man of those women, so you're not going to find anything here. But still is one needed scripture to guide me. I needed to have a kind of scriptural basis. Then I started looking around at what was happening in the world and seeing the unfolding of scripture. And I recall how the book says that the time would come when your sons and your daughters self prophesied. That allows you to have some sort of control hand in order to deal with things. As I went along, I happen to have met women who have influenced me and whom I admire greatly. I have known Daphne for a number of years. We are both graduates of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary almost overnight, and I.

Am not sure that I.

Recall that at Eastern Baptist Seminary in my home class. I don't know how many students we had, but there were only two minorities. I was the only black student and a young lady by the name of Lois. My name is Jensen. Now was the only female and interestingly enough, with only two who got A's of the class. I don't know what that means, but I had a chance to interact with ladies that we used to the Baptist Theological Seminary. But still, even at Eastern Baptist, I maintained a conservative posture and maintain a conservative posture. I like my friends and I was influenced by them and I could deal with them and talk to them. But there was still something in me that said no. But at Eastern Baptist Seminary, as I met Daphne and the others, and as we interacted, I could tell that something inside of me was opening up. I felt a sense of growth. It didn't go all the way, but it started at that particular point. When I came to Atlanta, I came to a church in which my predecessors daughter was an ordained minister. Well, I never had to confront any situation like that. In Coatesville, Pennsylvania, where fast and for some nine years my members are more conservative than I am. I had to twist arms and do everything to get a woman on the board of trustees. I think there are still some folks who probably are mad at me that I left. In New York and Brooklyn. When I pass this, I don't have to worry about that because the members there basically did not concern themselves when it came with women. But when I came to Greenstreet, it was something that I had to pray about and ask God's guidance on why I never had a woman to preach for me before in eight years that I had pastor. And I asked God what he would have me to do because there was almost an inclination to say no to the call. But yes, on the other hand, and this is where God wanted me to be. And so God worked with me. And God has brought me a long way to the extent that not only have I had a woman, I've had several with me from the pulpit this week, Street Baptist Church. Now, if I were to stand before you and say I am completely 100% liberal or whatever you might want to call it, I would be lying because I know within myself I am still growing. Some years ago, I could not have sat next to Reverend Lord, but I'm getting a little upset. But I can appreciate what she's saying and I can appreciate where she is coming from. I will admit that I am not where a lot of people are, but by the grace of God, I'm not where I used to be. All right. So I'm here for you. I'm here. I'm here sharing in this conference, representing you, recognizing the fact that maybe because I have not, where a lot of men say they are, you know, a lot of men I've met who will say one thing to women like amen. And I also recognize the fact that in the Baptist church, particularly Black Baptist church, there are a lot of women who will say to women, we affirm you, we endorse you. But when the pope has become vacant, you don't want to consider women. So I recognize that I am not where a lot of folks are, where a lot of people probably say I ought to be, but I'm broad free and I don't mind dialog with people in order to learn inside here. I believe that that makes me maybe the most unpopular of paddlers because I'm not all the way. But the Lord has allowed me to be a response, and I don't mind letting people know where I'm coming from. But certainly I can affirm both of these sisters as my colleagues in Christ, and I don't feel uncomfortable at all dialoging with the old man and affirming them as ministers of the gospel and as I. And. I can share a little bit of my own story by way of an interesting as well as I listened to Reverend Portnoy speak. I was reminded a great deal about my own experience leaving seminary. When I left, I had worked very hard and diligently as a seminarian trying to prepare myself for the ministry. I grew up at a black Baptist church in Virginia, which also has a very conservative tradition, and their traditions extend beyond women. And oftentimes they extend to men and aid and status as far as marital status. When I left seminary, I was about 24 and I was single. And that brief interview with several Baptist churches. And about 80% of the time when I heard from the interview committees, their responses were, I need someone a little bit more experienced in life, not in the church, but in life. And we need someone a little more settled. I need someone to marry. I felt a little bit betrayed by the church that I had grown up within and had shared so much in my life during that point. At that particular point in my life, I began to wonder whether or not my calling from God was in the Baptist church, whether there was were states that I had made. There was something wrong with me in trying to present myself the way I should have been presenting myself before the committees, whether I was coming off as too immature and therefore lacked the experience in life that would require that was necessary, and finally came to the determination that there is something as well in churches and people who would see God. Oftentimes they can't see clearly enough to see beyond prejudice the inherent tendencies towards inertia that they have in churches to be able to overcome the prejudices that they develop and their prejudices about age as well as about sex. I think that we have to overcome with them the black church because of those kinds of experiences, I've been able to. I think commiserate is the best word when I hear statements like those that come from repertoire from a different angle. But to send some of the same languages and some of the same hurt, I was able to find a calling in a Presbyterian church that was willing to look beyond the age requirements to take a chance on someone who was very young, but who also claimed to have visions about the ways that he wanted to work for the church and the people in the community. And it worked out to be a tremendous opportunity for me and I would think also for the church I have and I've been asked many times if I had problems changing from a Baptist to a Presbyterian denomination, and I never have. And one of the reasons, I think, is because I consider service to be much more important than denominational and at one church cannot meet the needs or work with a calling that God has established in that person's life. And I think that is a signal that perhaps God is calling that person a witness in ways and other churches perhaps, or in ways I can relate our own witness to the church that that person led and strong. No clear terms. I would like to be able to share that experience with Baptist Church as later and the experiences that that Reverend Flournoy has shared. As I continue with my ministry and attempt to grow in my ministry, especially the attempt to work with seminarians who are interested in pursuing careers, to teach them at a level of understanding and caring that there is much more to carrying God's Word and God's message than that meets the requirements of age or sex, and that we can overcome the inherent limitations and inertia that we feel within churches. See within church. I have one story that has always been very striking to me. I worked within the church on many different committees and people back and forth at different conferences. I remember one particular instance shuttling a group of about 13 people at our church van to a conference. That's when there were black women in Fred Black Presbyterian Church, and all of them were in leadership roles in their church and elders. And when that conversation came to black preachers, black women, preachers, all of them, all of them, to a person saw that as a negative, the negative of churches as a negative for women who were pursuing ministries or women in sales or in leadership roles and other things in the church and were in leadership roles in their communities. I think there is also there is a great deal of prejudice to be worked with pastors and churches, but there is also a deal of education that has to be done with congregations. And of course we need to teach the pastors to be able to teach the congregation, which is one of the problems we have is that we often can't get from the pastors to get to the congregations because of the the expansiveness that's there on the part of the past. But there is a great deal of work to be done in congregations. We hear so much about the difficulties that black male pastors have with these types of situations. I think also we need to recognize that there has been a lot of learning experience in churches that been in many cases have come from pastors, but that that experience also has to be changed at the ground level. There has to be some change within the sense of our people in the pews to understand that God's message.

Can be delivered as potently, as effectively and as strong and as clearly from women as.

So I think that the one thing I can add from the things I've heard is that we also need not only dedicated clergy like our community.

At this point, I would I would ask first if there are any further comments from the panel before we open up for general discussion from the.

Um, and that is that I think is the case. Well, I don't know. Just throw this out. I, too dealt with the problem of women going into ministry because of this question. But my calling all the powers that be and I had no choice but to stand up. By the time I became a minister, I was tired of fighting sexism and racism, and I didn't want to ever have to fight again. But my colleagues pushed me back. So in a way, I can understand this, you know, the people behind the scripture and that belief. But it just seems like we need to be able to recognize the situation and at times call for us to move beyond. Two things. First of all, I'd like to tell Hamilton, please don't become concerned about people leaving. They have to go class. And so your problem will be movement. I'd like to direct my question to her parents. Appreciate your honesty, but from from your point of view, what can you do? There are people who are who have not who are not people like you are. So what do you see as a way of getting to the point of changing things?

Well, I can't give the university.

And from here, not not really accounting for this. I know.

I sort of forget where you.

Were coming from.

I can't give the universal. Trinity explanation for that. For me, it was a matter of leading a dialog. I was blessed in that throughout my seminary career, both as a student and. I was passing so that I could bring with me. A pastoral background, pastoral citizenry. And at the same time. Be a student. And talk to my friends. And so in dialog with them, it helped me to basically start.

And opening up my heart and.

Being sensitive to what the Lord say. God will work with me in terms of saying this is where I want.

As we speak. Chase, This is what you have to deal with. A horrible truth.

I believe it's a matter of pride. It was a matter of saying, I know what you want me to do. I know we. But God help him. And he did. Now, for a lot of ministers, it may not be that way. I think it was actor Alan Alda who made mention the fact that for him, women in ministry was no problem because one day when he was sick, very sick. Herman Cain free to be at will. So that that was a kind of enlightening process. You know, I think that dialoging with pastors. Understanding pastors and praying with and for friends can help in terms of what to do. I think that if if the persons, the persons who talked to me even when I was that easily so, and even when I confess that I was conservative, I was much more conservative, did that now. They did not seem to try to put me down. They did not seem to try to see what's wrong with you. You are out of left field of what happened. Basically, it was a matter of still affirming themselves while understanding where I was comfortable. And throughout our being able to talk, I was able to see, I think that if they had sought to use that as an occasion to slip up from Michael Harris, I probably would have been more defensive and I would not allow on my. There are some pastors whom you probably will never be able to get through to a god. I think that there are some others who don't mind talking. I don't know how many pastors Terry asked to sit were absent, but it is quite conceivable, knowing some of the ministers with whom we interact, that he probably did ask some others and they probably told him no or they gave him a lot of good excuse for not being able to be here. I recognize that coming from a conservative background and coming in here, that probably I would be the one looked at very carefully and very closely. But I also saw it as an opportunity to not only let seminarians know that he was pastors and have brought the pastors and not above dialog when maybe my being here can even help some seminarians, you know, with some pastors and why they might feel that way. Yes, it is going to be a difficult time in terms. Being able to have people open their eyes anytime is an intoxicating persuasion for years and years of time. It's very hard to overcome. But if one allows the opportunity.

That God to bring that person to work on that person, I think I hope a complete answer to that.

You know, I've raised in the Baptist church also, and I've been in medicine 20 years, and it could be an easy guy to talk about being stupid, who say they think it's every guy we call number two. I mean that if I'm over the pulpit and he said it, you know, I think other black males what is they don't.

Allow women to prove that I could ever walk up I.

Ready to be led too long.

By human beings.

We have been discriminated and most anything I have run up in my life with black men discriminated against black women when it's been the black one, they care.

It is great for about a years.

And if you.

Walk in most churches, if you didn't have like women, you wouldn't have no church.

I wouldn't come to preach. I try to respond to that. Now, if you go to an average pastor talking like that, he'll tell you there is a goal.

For us today and.

That's what we need. You know, we need to take that.

No, that's not a term that's just like going.

To a movie.

If I don't like it. Look, I walk.

And crowds and problems they walk on. I'm not trying.

To say before.

The matter is, is that your your your feelings? They have merit. The attitude of expressing that. So you get around his talk right now, not even.

The elevation being you.

Understand what.

I'm saying.

30 What I'm trying to say to this brother over here may have a point, but if he goes and tries to talk to any pastor with that form, he's not going to get it across. Who is you going to help? Sometimes you got to temper what you say.

You may have a lot.

To say and your point may be good. But if you're going to go and basically say to any minister, you're a fool, you're dumb and come down on a minister, you're certainly not going to educate. I'm saying that the ones who talked to me understood where I was coming from, and they helped me to be where I am today. And I talked to you years ago.

I would probably.

Still be with you in a way that you only sit right here that I'm in right.

Now. If they were saying they said Cape Cod, you know, why is the white man me we're talking about.

You know, different think you are the one that's going to hurt rather than hell with me. I know. I'll be back and we'll see our problems. We'll hear about it or we will move.

Moving right along, Sarah And then Lorena.

I think my favorite thing about following up, I have a question for them. While intrigued by what Mr. Cain said about how 20 years ago and I can see every time they read something, they had asked, How does this apply to the black church? Because I think here it can work. Most of the time we have got to be able to ask that question in our work and in our union in the classroom. What I like to hear from anyone else is suggestions how seminary can incorporate in the education process ways to struggle with issues of women in ministry. At Candler and my three and a half years here, I took a feminist woman in theology class, and I think the issue came up somewhat in just the farm cultures pastoral care class. Then we finally had last spring to report on women in ministry worship class I had last fall, which is the one place where you would think we would talk about what it means for a sister to stand up and present the body of Christ if it was not an issue. And I'd like to hear what the panelists have experienced, what their suggestions might be for seminaries to incorporate for a discussion about this issue. Anyone who want to smoke anything here. So I can't really tell you what I think because I have that same concern.

And if it does not.

If it is not relevant directly to the place that I have chosen to stand and persevere, I'm not sure that I want to wait for you. And I know you know, that's the other thing. But I am I am over 50. This this thing, when you're over 50 years, you can look at it as 25 or 34, 31 years, depending on the average lifespan. Or you can look at it on the downhill slide. So it depends on my mood for the day. I looked at it. The point being that.

I don't have any time limit, so I want that.

Look at I have I have several those suggestion possibilities during the summer that I remember be one of them being a seminarian and field education. I worked in a church that was interracial and helped me to preach. I'd never been in white churches before. That helped me to appreciate.

The way in which the energies capacity of life.

Prepared to serve as organizing service in the worship structure. I think one thing the seminary can do is to encourage students to fill in cases to begin to promote seminarians, participate in congregations that are unlike the ones in which they come, so they can begin to experience differences in the way that the another is, I think seminaries are oftentimes they sit back and wait for students to come to them rather than being proactive in moving towards church denominational seminaries, especially like this one. They have a. Responsibility not only.

To train the ministers who come as students, but to also reach out to the community that surrounds the seminary, to be able to structure things like continuing education ministries for the.

Community as well as members within the congregation there. There should be some type of structure, I think, in that way to go and involve I think in the biblical studies department, there can be ways in which we can beat the scriptures so that men and women and whoever else wants to have a heart can have as many heart in place as that. And saying that, well, I have a problem with the Scriptures 51 day presence listening to some of the comments. We have problems with some scriptures. The way they deal with women. We often choose to see what we want to see, and often times the coursework allows us to see what's really emphasizing things that are against women. For instance, rather than thinking about some of the images that Jesus.

Fought with that.

Interaction. We have it damaged like Deveraux, our equivalent facilities to test their many positive images and role models of women in management leadership, and as well as the way we look at Scripture, looking at, for instance, the prophets or Paul, who wrote the material instead of seeing them as tape recorders, as gay guys and spit it back out, that they are people with personalities and translate that, that they have social lives and they translate into what they write teaching ministers or seminary social biases within the scriptures as a way to prevent seminaries.

And they're going to be coming back to say, well, the scripture says this time.

I think there are ways if seminaries want to.

Looking at ways they can adjust the curriculum in a way. Their relationship with the community, the church.

If it's not.