Unbelievable

jillian

Princess
Apr 4, 2006
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The Other Side of Paradise
Gotta love it....

Church Fires Teacher for Being Female

WATERTOWN, N.Y. (Aug. 21) - The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job - outside of the church.

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."

The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman.

"I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

Mayor Jeffrey Graham, however, was bothered by the reasons given Lambert's dismissal.

"If what's said in that letter reflects the councilman's views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age," Graham said. "Maybe they wouldn't have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now."

Lambert has publicly criticized the decision, but the church did not publicly address the matter until Saturday, a day after its board met.

In a statement, the board said other issues were behind Lambert's dismissal, but it did not say what they were.

....sure there were. :dunno:

It's an aol article, so I can't give a link...
 
But a whole church full? What was it...contagious?



A woman's place is in the house...and the senate....and the courtroom...and the operating room.....etc., etc., etc. lol...

Careful or we'll tell Judge P! :cheers2:

Pffffffffffffffffft! :slap:

Yah, Mr. P. Go somewhere and get a grip. :wank:
 
Statement released that the sole reason for her being let go was NOT because she was a woman.

----

Changes began to be made to maximize our growth and meet the needs of the growing congregation. The majority of our membership was genuinely excited about the growth and new hope for the future of the church, however, as you recall there were some who were unhappy with new members joining the church, changes that were being made and my performance in general as pastor. As a result a small group decided to forgo the mechanisms that we have in place for dealing with conflicts or disagreements within the church and elected to hire a local attorney and aired their grievances in a letter to the Watertown Daily Times.

The Board passed a resolution on May 21st 2006 reprimanding those individuals and their actions, encouraged them to avail themselves to our in house mechanisms for expressing concerns and complaints rather than utilizing the local media and acknowledged many of their actions as detrimental to the health and vitality of the church. Since the May 21st resolution the Board has been aware that several of those individuals continued to engage in activities the Board viewed as detrimental to the church family. As stated in the Boards August 19th press release the reasons for this most recent decision was, multifaceted and the scriptural rules concerning women teaching men in a church setting was only a small aspect of that decision. Christian courtesy motivates us to refrain from making any public accusations against her.

We had originally intended to include the various multifaceted reasons for the dismissal in our corresponds however after legal review it was recommended that we refrain from including issues that could be construed as slander and stick with spiritual issues that govern a church, which the courts have historically stayed out of. With threats of lawsuits in the past we wanted to try hard to not go down that road again. I am sure you can understand why we would desire to exercise caution. As Pastor of the First Baptist Church I take very seriously my responsibilities to watch over the congregation and I also take very seriously proclaiming scripture as the truth and applicable for all situations of life and containing the blueprints for how we should structure our church corporately. I believe based on the consistent teaching of scripture that there are qualifications for both men and women teaching spiritual matters within the church. These qualifications do not mean that one is superior or more important than another it only means that God has a special plan for each of us in accomplishing His work within the church setting. I believe that as a Pastor I will ultimately stand before God and give an account of how I proclaimed and enforced His word within the church setting especially.

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=BE944216-2AA3-477E-8C67-601C1F638673
 
Statement released that the sole reason for her being let go was NOT because she was a woman.

----

Changes began to be made to maximize our growth and meet the needs of the growing congregation. The majority of our membership was genuinely excited about the growth and new hope for the future of the church, however, as you recall there were some who were unhappy with new members joining the church, changes that were being made and my performance in general as pastor. As a result a small group decided to forgo the mechanisms that we have in place for dealing with conflicts or disagreements within the church and elected to hire a local attorney and aired their grievances in a letter to the Watertown Daily Times.

The Board passed a resolution on May 21st 2006 reprimanding those individuals and their actions, encouraged them to avail themselves to our in house mechanisms for expressing concerns and complaints rather than utilizing the local media and acknowledged many of their actions as detrimental to the health and vitality of the church. Since the May 21st resolution the Board has been aware that several of those individuals continued to engage in activities the Board viewed as detrimental to the church family. As stated in the Boards August 19th press release the reasons for this most recent decision was, multifaceted and the scriptural rules concerning women teaching men in a church setting was only a small aspect of that decision. Christian courtesy motivates us to refrain from making any public accusations against her.

We had originally intended to include the various multifaceted reasons for the dismissal in our corresponds however after legal review it was recommended that we refrain from including issues that could be construed as slander and stick with spiritual issues that govern a church, which the courts have historically stayed out of. With threats of lawsuits in the past we wanted to try hard to not go down that road again. I am sure you can understand why we would desire to exercise caution. As Pastor of the First Baptist Church I take very seriously my responsibilities to watch over the congregation and I also take very seriously proclaiming scripture as the truth and applicable for all situations of life and containing the blueprints for how we should structure our church corporately. I believe based on the consistent teaching of scripture that there are qualifications for both men and women teaching spiritual matters within the church. These qualifications do not mean that one is superior or more important than another it only means that God has a special plan for each of us in accomplishing His work within the church setting. I believe that as a Pastor I will ultimately stand before God and give an account of how I proclaimed and enforced His word within the church setting especially.

http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=BE944216-2AA3-477E-8C67-601C1F638673

Read the part where he says men and women have different plans. I've seen subterfuge in other discrimination matters... no different.

And I am certain the jury that hears the lawsuit will enjoy hearing about how the Word is delivered to this guy personally.
 
this is exactly why when i fire someone....i sit down with them...look them square in the eye....and i tell them....you are fired effective imediately. HR will be with you in a moment. and i walk out.....

sue me .... you were going to anyway .... i am just not going to give you any ammo as parting gifts.
 
Read the part where he says men and women have different plans. I've seen subterfuge in other discrimination matters... no different.

And I am certain the jury that hears the lawsuit will enjoy hearing about how the Word is delivered to this guy personally.

Not saying he is justified at all. I think saying that women can't teach the word of God is ridiculous.

I'm just saying that there might be other reasons for the dismissal. If there are, they definitely shouldn't have used that as the excuse.
 
this is exactly why when i fire someone....i sit down with them...look them square in the eye....and i tell them....you are fired effective imediately. HR will be with you in a moment. and i walk out.....

sue me .... you were going to anyway .... i am just not going to give you any ammo as parting gifts.

That is EXACTLY the way TO fire someone if you don't want to be sued. And the proper response to people calling after is "yes he worked here from" .... and worked until.....".

The rest is silence. ;)
 
Not saying he is justified at all. I think saying that women can't teach the word of God is ridiculous.

I'm just saying that there might be other reasons for the dismissal. If there are, they definitely shouldn't have used that as the excuse.

I doubt if they'd have picked a discriminatory reason if there were a real reason. Sounds to me, especially after reading your link, that this guy suddenly heard the Word differently and there's dissention over that in the Church... including the role of women. Sounds like he didn't like being challenged by the womenfolk.

And it's kinda hard to get around the comments in his letter "The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." (From Kathianne's link).

I'd fight him on that, too, btw. I'm glad you think not letting her teach because she's female is bogus.
 

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