by Kelly Pelton

Certain systems built around a common faith in Christ
are limiting the contributions that their women make,
devaluing them in the whole assembly of believers,
confining them to teach their own kind. Fairness is at stake

and God's impartiality ignored as men are lifted
highest in church social status, privileged, "first" as leaders,
keeping women from the elder roles of double honor,
sowing seeds of fear among the serious Bible readers

("Dodge those 'liberal' theologians," "Watch the slippery slope"),
lest they read the scholarship and go to God and taste
and see that He is good, His royal priesthood of believers
not by gender but by Jesus' gifting aptly placed.

With gratitude to Gretta L. Bennett and AJ Fletcher, "Separate but Equal: The Great Lie Behind Jim Crow and Progressive Complementarianism," Priscilla Papers vol. 39 no. 3, Summer 2025, p. 17.