The mayor of a Texas city has sparked a debate about prayer, gender and the relation of church and state after requesting that only men pray at city council meetings.
Wylie, Texas, Mayor Eric Hogue, who also serves as pastor of Cottonwood Church of Christ in the same city, made the comments in an email to a city council member who suggested local students from Youth With a Mission pray at a future council meeting, WFAA-TV in Dallas reported.
“All I ask is that those leading the public prayer be young men,” Hogue wrote on May 17 while citing two verses from the New Testament. “As a preacher for the Cottonwood Church of Christ, we take the two verses below literally.”
Hogue confirmed the validity of the email in an interview with WFAA.
In the email he cited 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and posted the text: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.”
He also quoted 1 Timothy 2:11-12: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
Hogue told WFAA: “I believe a lady can be president of the United States. I believe a lady can be CEO of a…
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