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Cheryl Bridges Johns holds the Robert E. Fisher Chair of Spiritual Renewal at Pentecostal Theological Seminary. Her book, “Seven Transforming Gifts of Menopause: An Unexpected Spiritual Journey” (Brazos Press), will be released on March 17. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.

The ancient Greeks believed the female body was particularly tainted and inferior. Women were seen as less rational than men and driven by instincts, and as such, they were closer to animals than to men. A woman’s uterus (Gk.: Hysterika) was a troublesome creature that roamed throughout her body, driving her mad with urges to have sex. Quipped Hippocrates, “What is woman? Disease.” We can thank him for the term “hysteria,” which later became a catchall phrase for “women’s disease.”

The ancient church father Tertullian, in his treatise “On the Apparel of Women,” broke into a tirade against women: “And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? You are the devil’s gateway. … You destroyed so easily God’s image: Man.”

It was Tertullian I was thinking of as I read Rachel Jones’ recent article, “PMS: The Monthly Fight with the Flesh,” on The Gospel Coalition website. Jones, who suffers with premenstrual syndrome, commonly referred to as PMS, believes her struggle offers a window into the spiritual reality of the war of the flesh against the Spirit. Jones invokes the Apostle Paul’s words from his letter to the Galatians, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”

Online reaction to Jones’ argument was swift. Many women expressed feeling shamed by the post, which seemed to equate PMS symptoms, which she called “a fight with the flesh,” with sin.

Many of the theologians in the ancient church, including Paul, were influenced by Hellenistic (Greek) philosophy, which promoted the idea that spirit was superior to the body. In the course of time, Paul’s usage of the flesh became synonymous with the body. In order to fight the flesh, Christians have denigrated the body and waged all war against it.

Jones is not ignorant of how Paul uses the phrase “the flesh.” His purpose, she wrote, is to refer to “the whole person as under the impulses of sin.” But in advising Christian women about how to deal with PMS, Jones jumps to the role of the body as the battleground on which the war against sin is fought and stays there.

A better reading of Paul’s use of the word “flesh” would be to include the dimensions of the mind, the affections and the will. To fight this fight is to have the mind of Christ, to love as God loves, and to live in obedience to God’s will.

But even if Jones were to restrict herself to emotions, she too readily identifies negative emotions as sinful. They are not. This is the real danger of Jones’ argument. In a conservative Christian world where pleasantness and niceness define a Christian woman, negative emotions are already too often considered shameful. Jones not only supports this view, she perpetuates images of women as ruled by their hormones, which in turn serves the ideology that women are designed by God to submit to the leadership of men.

Source: Religion News Service

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Back when he was the mayor of Burlington, Vt., Bernie Sanders wrote to a Russian official in the late 1980s about creating a sister city relationship. Communist officials in the Soviet Union couldn’t have been happier, viewing it as a chance to exploit that relationship and others like it for propaganda purposes. 

The New York Times reports it examined letters, telegrams, and internal Soviet government documents that revealed in greater detail the extent of Sanders’ effort to establish ties between his city and a country many Americans then still considered a dangerous enemy.

Sanders’ desire for friendship fell in line with a goal of Kremlin officials to “reveal American imperialism as the main source of the danger of war.”

The documents also show how the Soviets wanted to use the sister-city exchanges as a way to sway American public opinion about their country. 

“One of the most useful channels, in practice, for actively carrying out information-propaganda efforts has proved to be sister-city contact,” a Soviet Foreign Ministry document said.

All the documents are part of a government archive in Yaroslavl, Russia, which later became the sister city of Burlington. The files are open to the public, though archivists there said that, until now, no one had asked to see them, according to The Times. 

The newspaper reported there is nothing in the documents to suggest that Sanders was the only American official targeted to be used in propaganda, but he is described in the papers as a socialist. 

In 1987, when Sanders announced that Burlington was seeking a Soviet sister city, several dozen other American cities already had a similar relationship or had applied for one. By 1989, there were 36 recorded affiliations, according to Sister Cities International. 

“Mayor Sanders was proud to join dozens of American cities in seeking to end the Cold War through a Sister Cities program that was encouraged by President Reagan himself,” a Sanders campaign spokesman, Mike Casca, said in a statement to The Times. 

“The exchange between Burlington and Yaroslavl, which continues to this day, confirmed Sanders’ long-held view: by meeting face to face, we can break down the barriers and stereotypes that exist between people and their governments,” he continued. 

The Times article published on Friday goes into detail about Sanders’ trip to the Soviet Union in 1988, which according to the paper, has been told before. The bottom line is that, in 1988, Sanders chose to spend his honeymoon in communist Moscow. Historian Lee Edwards wrote for the Heritage Foundation that Sanders visited Lenin’s tomb among other sites.

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The Vatican has reported its first case of coronavirus today – days after Pope Francis tested negative for the virus.

The discovery brings the epidemic to the city-state surrounded by Italy, which has confirmed more than 3,800 cases and 148 deaths due to the virus.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the new case was diagnosed on Thursday and that services in Vatican clinics had been suspended in order to deep clean the areas.

Bruni gave no details on whether the person who tested positive was a Vatican employee living in Italy or was among the few clergy and guards who live inside its walls.

Pope Francis himself tested negative for the virus after suffering from a cold last week. Today his official Twitter account said he wishes to ‘express my closeness to those who are ill with the coronavirus’.

The Vatican has also put another official into protective quarantine and shut the doors of its Apostolic Library to guard against the spread of the virus.

Most Vatican employees who use its health services live in Italy, on the other side of the border with the 108-acre city state.

The Vatican said it is working with Italian authorities to keep the coronavirus from spreading, with a suspension of Pope Francis’ weekly audiences likely.

It remains unclear how the Vatican will alter Francis’ schedule and other events leading up to Easter Sunday on April 12.

Francis would normally preside over the Way of the Cross procession at the Colosseum on Good Friday, celebrate an Easter Vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica and deliver a traditional Urbi et Orbi message in St Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.

Source: Daily Mail

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ORLANDO, Fla. — World renowned worship leader turned pastor, William McDowell, hosted his second annual Deeper Worship Intensive last week where he encouraged leaders to refrain from getting sucked into the “epidemic” of imitating others and should instead “stay hidden” in God in order to be moved by divine power.

“I have been sharing a weight and a burden for this gathering for months. DWI is one of the things that I know I was born for. So because of that, I carry the weight of this assignment,” McDowell told the hundreds gathered from several nations at the conference.

The Billboard-topping singer told the pastors and worship leaders gathered that he believes Christians are “either growing or dying, there’s no in-between.” He said many people in leadership are emulating what other leaders are doing and they are not receiving from God on their own.

“What I see is that we have a lot of people imitating things that they see. I want to say imitation is not necessarily, inherently bad. It was Paul that wrote in 1st Corinthians twice, 1st Corinthians chapter four and in 1st Corinthians chapter 11, he said, ‘Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.’ There was a sentiment that there is an OK nature to imitation when it’s done right,” McDowell stressed.

He added, “The problem is that there is a lifestyle that accompanies this call and the expectation of Heaven and the world as a result of this call. I’m going to endeavor to talk to us about Heaven’s expectation because I want you to know that there is a divine expectation for the gift you’ve been given.”

“There is something that we are required to do as a result of this gift that we’ve been given. So many of us do our best to imitate what we see. But I want to share something with you, the issue with imitation without a relationship with God is that it can lead to trouble and confusion. The greater problem with that, is that you won’t discover what’s in you or what’s not in you until you are actually in the moment where you need it,” McDowell maintained.

“Here lies the problem with imitation, because if you’re imitating something that’s not actually in you and you find yourself in a circumstance where you need it, you’re going to have trouble,” he continued.

The Ohio native, who has five critically acclaimed albums, including his latest Billboard-topping album, The Cry, then quoted a story told by the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts chapter 19 in the Bible.

In this account, Paul shared how he was used mightily by God which even allowed him to transfer healing and deliverance to others by sending handkerchiefs as a point of contact. Then the story introduces seven others, named the sons of Sceva, who were just imitating followers of God and were overpowered by a demon because they had no authority in God for themselves.

“The issue with imitation without Christ’s proximity or relationship is you can actually enter into a circumstance, or a situation, or a moment, or a service, or a time in which there is a requirement for what’s supposed to be in you. But it’s not actually in you because you’ve been imitating without relationship,” McDowell warned.

The 43-year-old minister said social media has heightened people’s ability to copy others only for the sake of showing one’s mountain top experience.

“We are the generation that loves to watch YouTube videos, and loves to watch live streams, and loves to buy videos and listen to music. We get up there and we close our eyes, but instead of worshiping, we’re actually trying to imitate or pretend like we’re the person we watched. … Completely not present to the moment, all trying to recreate that moment that’s not even here. [That’s] imitation,” McDowell maintained.

He looked out in the crowd and said, “Many of us are attempting to do this without genuine relationship and I want you to know, that the issue with that, is that you won’t know that it’s not in you until you need it,” he exhorted.

“Scripture says to us that the genuineness of faith is proven in trial. The genuineness of faith is not proven on the mountaintop. The genuineness of faith is proven in trials, which is to say to us that we won’t actually know until we’re in it.”

McDowell said “one of the major pitfalls of the social media age” is that it can potentially remove one of the most important and vital aspects of God’s process, which, he said, is “preparation” developed by “hiddenness.”

“Hiddenness is a critical part of purification,” he continued. “I understand that we’re in a time now that we want everybody to see that we can do something, but our character is developed in the crucible of hiddenness.”

Since McDowell launched his church five years ago, he testified that hundreds of people have had documented healing.

Source: Christian Post

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