Christian Afghan women fear ‘double persecution’
Luke Randall
Christian women in Afghanistan are now facing ‘double persecution,’ according to an evangelical mission agency, as draconian new Taliban restrictions take force.
All women have been banned from speaking or showing their faces in public in the Taliban’s latest infringement on women’s rights since reclaiming power in 2021.
How Jesus bucks cultural norms with women
In these two short extracts from her new book, She Needs – Women Flourishing in the Church, Nay Dawson writes about how women in Christian contexts can often be patronised and infantilised. She cites Jen Wilkin (an author and Bible teacher from Texas who has led studies for women over many years) who speaks of three female ghosts that haunt the church: the Child, the Usurper and the Temptress. Nay writes, concerning the Child:
Many years ago, I was at a conference. I tried to join a conversation with two male acquaintances, but their response was, ‘Go away, silly little girl.’ I felt sick and stupid, and just wished I could disappear. Women are often treated as children; decisions are made for them, and they are patronised and humiliated in conversations.
Isn’t it time we start fighting for women rather than against them?
‘The blog made very uncomfortable reading and would be utterly crushing to a pastor's wife’, 'I couldn't even finish this blog, I felt so sick and humiliated', ‘I was left really concerned about the bruising tone of this article'. What are the blogs these women read to leave them feeling like this?
A weird off beat lone ranger Pastor mishandling the Bible? Or blogs posted by well respected mature pastors backed by churches and organisations?