Wild At Heart Day 4

With all this boy stuff/ girl stuff going round in my head I saw this clip today from the Lausanne Movement conference in Cape Town a few weeks ago. View it here I subscribe to what they say...

At about 3minutes in they say this; "In the beginning God created men and women - he created them with the same partnerships, the same blessings, the same responsibilities; the same dominion... At the fall this dominion was greatly distorted, but Christ through his ressurrection and crucifixion, brought back the possibility for restored relationship, including shared dominion on the earth between men and women."

I think what they are saying is that men and women are capable of equal contribution to joining in with the redemption of the earth that God is committed to.  I agree with that idea.  The Bible says that we are co-labourers with Christ - that must be true therefore of men and women - if we are co-labourers with Christ as men, and women are co-labourers with Christ, we men must, by logic, be co-labourers with women.

That doesn't necessarily help the debate over how different is the contribution of women compared to men... are we equal but different in our spiritual gifts - I guess I've never spotted anywhere in the Bible that says women have a different set of spiritual gifts to men - only cultural reasons for different roles in the church...  Perhaps some of those cultural reasons still exist.  The jury is still out to a certain extent for me.

Straw poll - Do you think that in God's eyes the role/function/gifts of women include the right to be Leaders/Elders/Pastors/Apostles/Bishops (not even a biblical role?!)????

I love their idea that when women use and grow in their gifts they battle and defeat the curse of Eden.  It is of course true for men too, but all the more poignant after centuries of subjugation of women.
Until I've learned and reflected more I will stop there!  But I AM very interested in your thoughts!  Trying to avoid the discussion on the difference between men and women now!  Getting boggy in my head.  I figure if I read "Captivating" next then I'll get a better picture of women in their uniqueness and perhaps then might have more to say.  Right now just want to focus on exploring masculinity for what it's worth - not for what it is in relation to femininity!