Early this morning (around 3 a.m.), Pastor Saeed Abedini posted an anti-Hillary rant on Facebook that centered around his personal views on male headship and women’s submission to that authority.
Those were the pictures I took around 10:30 this morning. Since then, Saeed has edited the second-to-last paragraph to emphasize the point of his message:
Not surprisingly, this post has incited some lively discussion. In the past 22 hours, there have been 182 reactions, 154 comments and 44 shares. And just now, as I am typing this, I tried to look at the post again and see this:
Evidently, I’ve been blocked!
There were some really lovely comments made by egalitarians in response to Saeed’s post, and now I wish I had captured more screenshots. Marg Mowzcko, the scholar behind the egalitarian exposition of Scripture at newlife.id.au, left several powerful comments. This was my favorite:
The Chiasm in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16
And Debbie Folthorp made an important observation:
AG – The Role of Women in Ministry
I replied to a couple comments and left one of my own:
I am hopeful that others are also responding to Pastor Saeed’s incorrect and damaging views on women in leadership. It is important that examples of blatant cherry-picking of Scripture and patriarchal interpretation be publicly refuted and challenged so that those who may not otherwise hear another view may perhaps question these teachings.
If you are unfamiliar with Pastor Saeed Abedini beyond his 3.5 years of imprisonment in Iran and the powerful movement among Evangelicals to have him freed, Spiritual Sounding Board and A Cry for Justice have many excellent posts and links to articles explaining his history of marital abuse and questionable character. We also posted about The Courageous and Wise Naghmeh Abedini and abuse in marriage, which is important for the Church at large to be educated on, as victims of abuse are almost always further victimized in the process of protecting the celebrity figures and reputation of the organization at large.
May we continue to pray for healing in the Abedini family.
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The Beautiful Kingdom Warriors 
If a person is walking in the spirit of God gender for humankind is not and should not become an issue. Biblically speaking one has to renew their mind to be able to see the inner workings that plays on our emotions as carnal and spiritual beings. A wife or wives can be speaking about the land, a place, a city, a group of any kind, a corporation or company, affiliations or coalitions of any kind. Wives can be country as a whole, a political body or governing body, a city or a church where one’s spirit resides, works, plays or worships. These kind of wives are the places where humans congregate and bring forth ideas (little ones), plant the seeds (words and thoughts), maintain and grow things. They can also be places where things can be built or broken down, defense towers, walls or fortifications, etc. In these groups individuals and the body of the whole can also be invaded by foriegn thoughts and misdeeds and can be easily misled. These groups, companies or coalitions become bodies which in turn build bureaucracies of powers and principalities. A wife could also be an object say a phone, a car, a statute, s building, a good or bad habit, a job or a worldly precept that we have held onto. All of these things we attach to as humans are considered husbands and wives. It is all of the things, words or ideas that individuals, groups or families attach themselves to in their daily lives that affect both their physical, emotional and spiritual bodies. We should not confuse personal individual relationships between the male and female (all of humankind) with the spiritually hosts, nations and lands that are written into the words to guide us through this carnal world of flesh to the saving of our souls.
Now that issue is out of the way I can voice an opinion. There are females and males both of the human species perfectly capable of heading up a political body in service for the people that these corporate bodies were intended to assist. The Church has her own glorious body of believers who have been swayed and coerced for years just as the country also has a large body of members that have been swayed and coerced by the spiritual things that have been loosed within them. Neither needs to get in the way of the other and neither should try to be the head of the other nor should they be over the head of a man (human). We our individuals were created in God’s image therefore we are complete in him. God rules the hearts with those spiritual hosts he created in the beginning of time. The corporate body of the church is to support and uphold not rule over or be the head of the individual humans. Our heavenly father has that covered with those portions he created.
The political body of the country was also created in such a manner as to support and uphold freedom and liberty not to suppress personal freedom and liberty. Both have been subverted by corruption and perversion under the color of law by lawless individuals. As individuals we have Christ ‘anointing’ Jesus ‘Jehovah’s salvation with us’ to see with our spiritual eyes the deception and corruption that has been taking place in both the Church and our government if we are willing to open our eyes and ears to see the truth. This is where we need to get back to the basic principles and words that each of these entities were founded on. The freedom to walk in liberty, seeking truth and happiness without fear and oppression is a God given right in this country called the United States of America. It will be up to her people to keep that freedom alive and not let foreigners decide her fate.
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Thank you for your comment! So true that God is our head and we are complete in Him.
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Perhaps I am leaving a very simple comment, probably one that many have already posted; however….it seems to me, for all of Saeed’s ranting about the….uh…..authority of women, I suspect that at least half (maybe more) of those praying for him and interceding for him straight to The Throne were women. It doesn’t matter the percentage. The fact is that women were, indeed, praying for him, and I’d hope he’d be a bit more grateful.
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