Quotes from Carolyn Custis James

From what I can see, women and girls are a rich and largely untapped goldmine--a powerhouse of blessing and gifts for the church, of strength and wisdom for our brothers, and of enormous good for the world. After all, women do hold up half the sky.

Rich, collaborative, interdependent relationships between God's sons and daughters are vital to both genders and make the body of Christ stronger. The Blessed Alliance fuels the kingdom of God and must not be displaced by an atmosphere of tension, fear, and mistrust.

When God looks at the earth--as though peering in a mirror--he wants to see himself reflected back. And the place he wants to see the clearest reflection is in his image bearers--both as individuals, but more importantly, in our relationships.

This debate has repercussions on how we live for God, how we relate to our neighbors both near and far, and how we connect with our Christian brothers. It affects the valuing of women, the quality of our marriages, and the teachings and behavioral patterns we pass on to our children. It shapes our ideas of what it means to be part of the body of Christ, how we develop and use our gifts, and what Jesus asks of us in fulfilling his mission for the world.

In Genesis God is multiplying the mystery of the Trinity in his image bearers by creating another individual who stands on level ground with the man and is completely different from, yet one with him. The oxygen hasn't grown thin after all. God is still vision casting--this time for male/female relationships.

The book of Ruth proves the point. "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Gen 2:18). The point being that men actually need their sisters to step up and answer God's call on their lives.

Focus on the wife as her husband's helper has led to the belief that God gave primary roles and responsibilities to men, and secondary, supporting roles to women. It has led to practices that communicate that women are second class citizens at home and in the church. None of this is true. There is nothing second class about God's vision for his daughters, and the ezer holds the clues.

We represent him [God] in this world--speaking and acting on his behalf. He is counting on his daughters along with his sons to be guardians of the whole earth and to rule it as he himself would.

Jesus firmly and consistently reinforced human equality by spending a lot of time in the margins of society, most notably in relationships with women. He didn't simply bring relief and comfort to the down and out. He engaged, recruited, and mobilized for his kingdom people who didn't count for anything in the eyes of society or of religious leaders. His interactions with women violated patriarchal propriety and repeatedly shocked his disciples.

Pharasaical tendencies in all of us make the walk of faith doable. We can be moral, go to church, read our Bibles, and give our 10 percent. Jesus and Ruth knock down the walls of that kind of thinking. Real kingdom living is clostly. It will stretch, bend, and break us. Following Jesus isn't the path to a tame or easy life. It is about taking up a cross--which means laying down our lives as Jesus did for the sake of others.

Women in today's world--both those who suffer oppression and those who enjoy unprecedented opportunities--would find Jesus' interactions with women irresistible, life-giving, and profoundly healing.

Whatever power and privileges Jesus' followers possess are gifts to be held loosely and wielded for the care and benefit of others...