This talk given at a 1981 eldersâ meeting by Kevin Ranaghan summarized the teaching of the People of Praise on the roles of men and women and contrasted these views with current worldly trends. He also described potential excesses in this area which he had seen in the wider charismatic renewal and Pentecostal movement. Note to listeners: The talk begins with an extended period of humor and loud laughter. The substance of the talk begins at minute 3:30. Audio quality is diminished in some sections. Listeners may want to follow along with the transcript.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
[Recording begins after Kevin has begun speaking.]
KEVIN: . . . The Roles of Men and Women, Revisited. Is that what we decided, The Roles of Men and Women, Revisited? Glory to God.
KEVIN: [with German accent] First, ve start vith a little reffiew of zee nomenclature [laughter] vich is fery important for haffing schtraight. [Referring to a diagram.] Ve haffe here a man. [Laughter.] Ve can zee zatâa man and a voman. Here, you zee? Kind of cute.
LISTENERS: Ja.
KEVIN: Ja, fery good. Ja! Okay. Here ve haffe zee little boy.
LISTENERS: Boy!
KEVIN: Boy, ja! Und zee little girl.
LISTENERS: Girl!
KEVIN: You zee, you zee? Zatâs fery, fery, fery good, zat, ja? All right, und zis here is zee puppy dog. [Laughter.] Ja? Und offer here ve haffe zee kitty cat. [Laughter.] Now, pzychologists und zeologians haffe determined zat zee inffizible line here, in zee order of creazion [laughter] haz beenâzis vas by Zaint Thomas of Aquinas vas one, and Hubert of Humperdinck vas zee ozer. [Laughter.] Zey determined ziz infizible line zere in zee order of creazion. But here is perzons. Ja? Here. Ja. [Laughter.] Und here is chust puppy dogs und kitty cats. [Laughter.] Ja. Of all zee six in zee set, efferybody in zere can haffe a role, but itâs fery difficult vor efferybody in zere to haffe interperzonal relazionschips. [Laughter.] Zo, vor roles you can look to all but, vor interperzonal relazionships, you chust look on top of zee line. [Laughter.]
LISTENER: Thank you, Professor.
KEVIN: Youâre fery velcome. Ja. Now, if you get confuzed at any time during zee talk, pleaze chust refer to zee chart. [Laughter and applause.]
KEVIN: I would like to begin. . . . Itâs like this little man in me that tries to come out and talk, you know. . . . Back, back! [Laughter.] In the first part of my talkâ
LISTENER: [Inaudible] [Laughter.]
KEVIN: Thank you. [Laughter and whooping.] Remember zee big point vrom yesterday: God spiks vrom nature, too. [Laughter.]
KEVIN: First part of the talk: I want to briefly [deep breath] recall our position in the area of roles of men and women. Our past reflections have rightly stressed, have rightly stressed the following seven points.
Men as elders of the Christian community. Men are to be elders of the Christian community.
The second point we have stressed is headship and submission in marriage. We have taught the headship of the husband over the wife for the union of the marriage in the context of the covenant love established in the blood of Jesus.
Third, we have moved towards . . . actually in our communities rather than teachâweâve taught about it; we also move towards itâestablishing, within the context of the one society of the community, subgroups or subsocieties of men and women: just a society of men or a group of men, a society of women or a group of women, within the one body, which is our community. We have seen strong advantages in doing that. So we have moved to separate men and women to a certain degree in our communities.
Fourth, we have taught the importance of the development of distinctly manly character and distinctly manly virtue among the men, and distinctly womanly character and womanly virtue among the women, and weâve seen those as distinct.
Fifthly, we have insisted on the training of sons by fathers up into the society of men. That is to say, we have said that at about a certain ageâah . . . six, seven, somewhere in there; Iâll tell you when heâs older [laughter]âexperiments are going on in it now and weâll have the truth in a few years [laughter]âthe father begins to take the primary responsibility for the training of the boy, and he trains him up as a man. He works to reproduce himself in the boy and to produce a man like himself, and raise him up into the society of men.
And the same is true for [point] six, the training of daughtersâno, yesâthe training of daughters by mothers into the society of women.
And seventh, we have taught the joint responsibility of parents togetherâalways, of course, under the headship of the husbandâbut the joint responsibility of the parents to train and discipline their children and to form real Christian family life.
Now, you could take any one of those seven points and talk about it for a long time, which I wonât do. I just want to say, that is . . . a weak little capsule of the kind of position that we have taken and taught and that we uphold in our communities.
These emphases have emerged among us in strong contrast to the background of our contemporary culture, both in the society around us and also in the church. Thus, what we have done has emerged, not as a reaction to, but certainly as an antidote to and against the background of the following conditions: radical feminism, the antiauthority atmosphere of our society, unisex, the gay culture, the general confusion of sexual roles and identities between men and women and boys and girls. What Iâm doing is listing factors in the background, listing factors that are there in the air. Another one is the increased competitiveness and hostility between men and women, for example, in the marketplace. Another one is the breakdown of family life. Increasingly, that would include both the rising divorce rate and the rise of long-term sexual relationships without benefit of the institution of marriage as an accepted way of lifeâthat breakdown of family, and the homosexual couple living together, etc., the increase of free love, adultery. And finally, the problems ofâand this is in a little different category because I think Iâve been pointing out, you know, hideous evils and hydras, and the last one Iâm going to mention is not quite in the same category, although itâs a problem, and it is the dominance of couple-as-couple identities and relationships.
So I tell you what that means, that last one. Couple-as-couple identity and relationships means this kind of situation. Whether in a business context or a social context, or whether in a Christian context or a pagan context, the dynamic of relationships was so couple-to-couple oriented or as a-couple-among-couples oriented so that . . . let me see if I can get this straight now. So far, weâre real good. You got all these couples relating together, huh? [Chuckles.] Okay, okay? Itâs likeâitâs notâyou know, itâs not âPaulâ and âJeanne.â Itâs âthe DeCellesâ [sic]. Itâs not âWhitâ and âDorothy,â itâs âthe Aus,â okay? Theyâre identified together. Okay, thatâs what Iâm talking about. So that . . . it gave you male/female relating to male/female as the constant dynamic, so that men could not relate to men, either for brotherhood or friendship, and women could not relate to women, for brotherhood or friendship. Now, that is another big topic. And weâve heard talks, many of us have had turkâturks? [Kevin chuckles.]âtalks on that before. [Laughter.] Thank you. Weâve had talks on that before and on how that really fouled up relationships and friendships because it made the dynamic of social relationships always a mixture of male/female, okay, and that has been a big social problem. Thatâs one of the reasons we went to menâs groups, womenâs groups, the menâs society and the womenâs society.
Okay, now, so those were, you know, seven things we stand for, and the background from which we have come, out of which that has developed. I would say, as I look at where we are, maybe, what are we?, something like seven years since we really started to move into this direction? We have done well in this area and we continue to make progress in this area.
In some of the areas of our teaching, we may not have gotten very far, either in our personal life or our community life. We may have a lot of problems in our womenâs groups or we may have problems in our headship/submission relationships in marriages, or we may have problems with teenage sons identifying more with their mothers. I mean, those problems might still exist among us, and we need to say: weâre moving in the right direction, but we will also recognize from case to case, situation to situation, that we have a lot left to do.
So, this is what we stand for. This is the background out of which it came. We continue to stand for that and weâre going to continue to move in that direction. Weâre not going to back off it at all. Okay. That was first part of talk.
Second part of talk. Iâm doing this as rapidly as I can for the sake of our discussion time.
At the same time, as with any truth or any goal, excess can develop and can result in error or vice, or at least misunderstanding and confusion. The following hypothetical, apocalyptic and imaginary incidents [laughter] appear to me to be excesses in the area.
For example, there were the elders who legislated a dress code for all the women in the community without consulting the women, or without even asking themselves if it wouldnât be more appropriate for the women to decide whether or not they should have a dress code. I would call thatâshould something like that happen, I would consider that a real excess. Do the elders have authority? Sure, the elders have authority. Iâm not questioning the eldersâ authority to decide things for the community. Iâm just saying, given that kind of a question, okay, for the elders to make that kind of a decision without consulting the women appears to me to be a mistake.
Second hypothetical, apocalyptic, imaginary example is of the woman who could not lend her neighbor a cup of sugar without calling her husband at work to submit it. [Laughter and booing.] Is the husband the head of the wife? Sure. Sheâs supposed to submit to him in everything, yes. But youâthe Bible teaches so much about, you know, women as the ministers of works of mercy, as reaching their hands out to the poor. The Bible is full of a pattern of how women of God live and how they relate to the people around them. But if a woman is soooo dependent on her husbandâs present word, and is somehow out of touch with the biblical context for what it is to be a holy woman of God, somethinâs up. Or for a husband to insist on it, I mean, it might be [that] the person in this hypothetical story might have not been able to decide. Or, it might have been that the husband didnât understand about the formation of her Christian womanhood, but insisted on overseeing every detail of her life. I would think that could be an excess.
Let me try to go further . . . faster. The imaginary group where women never spoke to men unless the men spoke to them first because they felt they couldnât do that.
Fourth, the church in which womenâs domestic skills were so emphasized that women were discouraged to go to college or discouraged to go to graduate school. Okay? In other words, where the prevailing attitude was that, you know, âWell, women are, you know, supposed to grow up and keep house and care for the domestic aspect completely, and thatâs their concern, and thatâs their area. And if thereâs any education to be done or needed, well, thatâs for the men. You know, as for the women, keep them âbarefoot and pregnant.ââ
Fifth excess would be this kind of a situation: an imaginary household where the men and the boys in the household messed the place up continually and happily ignored their own garbage, dirty clothes, etc., and continually expected the women to be continually and cheerfully waiting on them hand and foot. So, I mean, thatâs kind of anâyou would see that kind of an attitude, which I would certainly consider an excess, where not much concern is given to the women or the womenâs needs. The sense is that, âWell, the women are here to serve the men and take care of the men, and this whole kind of domestic thing, you know. Pfwit! Shove the peanut shells on the floor. They can get them later.â
The sixth kind of excess would be the son who only listened to his father, and in principle ignored his motherâs advice or direction. Now, itâs difficult for boys, Iâm told, at a certain age, to respond particularly well to their motherâs direction, but Iâm talking about an excess where, you know, the kid will only listen to his father, and in principle he wonât listen to his mother at all. Thatâs certainly against Scripture.
Those are examples ofâI would say that another example would be the kind of guy who wanted continually to associate with the menfolk and really eschewed any kind of association with his wife or with other women. I consider that a real excess.
Now, we can trot out contrasting excesses, okay? That would be easy to do. I haveâwhat do I have?âfour contrasting excesses.
The first is what I call the âreign of the elders and the rule of the mothers.â Iâm familiar with a large Pentecostal church with international headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, where I went to a big church rally. And all the elders were in front, but also was this huge group of women all dressed in white, and they were the âmothers.â And there was the presiding bishop and the associate presiding bishops and the associate bishops presiding and the elders and the elder deacons and the deaconâs elders and the deaconâs deacons [laughter] all over here. And that was all the men, okay? But on the other side, you had the mothers. And theyâin this church, they had the local mothers, the state mothers, the regional mothers, the national mothers, and the head of the whole thing was a woman who was, glory to God, known as the âinternational mother.â [Laughter.] And what you had in this group was two completely parallel structures.
And it was clear to me from looking at this church that the elders kind of âdo church,â but the real power in the group [laughter] is the mothers. I noticed that in this church because every year the international conference of this church is held in this . . . thing, itâs called a âtemple,â in Memphis, Tennessee. Itâs sort of like a big armory with girders and things like that. Thatâs where the international conference of the church is held. But the international conference of the mothers is held at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. [Laughter.]
Now, let me say about this group that theyâre very fine, wonderful, good, holy, righteous Christian people. Iâm justâitâs just that their structure struck me as so funny, because it was perfectly obvious that the men had their realm in which they could operate, but the mothers were in charge.
And so, an excess of what Iâm talking about, going back in the other direction now, is where the men kind of back off, the elders get kind of intimidated and, you know, the elders kind of know where their place is. And the women really are kind of setting the tone, setting the agenda, pushing things forward, making it kind of clear by how they feel, you know, what can go on and in what direction. So that would be an excess in the other direction.
The second is what I would call âpublic submission and private manipulation,â which is something that I think can go on very easily in a marriage, whereâand we talk about this a lot in CFS II [Christian Formation Series II], or whatever you call that course we do on marriageâwhere wives can be very publicly submissive, but in the background they can be manipulating so much what they submit or casting the light on thisâon a certain situation, so their husband sees it in a certain way. Men do this with their heads too. I mean, itâs not just a problem that women might have; itâs a temptation for men also. But that can be a problem in the other direction, where it looks like, on the surface, there is headship and submission in the marriage relationship, but in fact, either because of fault with the husband or with the wife, the wife is manipulating the situation in such a way that she is in control of the situation, even though the husband thinks heâs heading.
The third excess of the opposite type would be the household environment that is so made and so controlled by the women that the men and boys feel like fish out of water. I mean, we teach that wives, that womenâthe wife ought to rule her house and that she really has to make the home, and make it a place for entertainment, hospitality, peace, order, beauty, etc., and thatâs part of her role under her husbandâs oversight. But if that atmosphere gets so controlled by the womenfolk that, you know, the men feel so completely uncomfortable in the place that it really becomes totally a womanâs place. I call it the âpink and frilly bedroom problem,â and it can be that situation where the wife does, you know, decorates the bedroom, soâa lot like she always wanted her room to be when she was a teenager, okay? And it has that kind of look to it. Well, I mean, the guy just, you know, feels awful in a place like that. And itâs not his room. Heâs sort of visiting in her room. [Laughter.]
Okay. The fourth opposite excess is the woman who was so drained from meetings or relationships with other women, okay? Where, you know, âIâve got to go out and minister to these women and Iâve got to go minister to these women, and I have this share group and I have this and this and this . . . [Kevin voices a prolonged, belaboured breath]â And she is so wiped out by all of that, withâthat therefore the cooking and the cleaning and the kids fall mostly to the husband. That would be the fourth kind of excess of that kind.
Do you understand Iâve been talking about two different sets of excesses? Okay, thereâsâthe first set of excesses were taking the teaching kind of too far in aâoh, I donât know whether justâyou know, call it something mild, like âmale-chauvinist, fascist-pigâ sort of direction [laughter], and the other is carrying it over into a feminine-dominance kind of situation where it should not be.
Okay, so, what Iâm trying to do is say: these are our principles. We stand by our principles. Weâre moving forward with our principles. Yet, we see dangers of misrepresentation or excess going two ways. We donât have time here, if weâre going to have any discussion at all of everything weâve done through the weekend, we donât have time to go into them in detail. But I think we need to have our senses sharp for a twisting of the men/women relationship or the male/female role kind of problem and getting it off somehow, and it can go in either way.
So, in light of the above, I would like to make a few suggestions . . . a modest proposal. [Chuckles.]
The firstâand here I have five pointsâthe first is this. I think we need to stress the importance of the relationship between the elders and the handmaids. The ongoing consultation on our life and mission as it affects women is very important. Elders need really to listen with respect to the input of the key women. Itâs a very important point. I think God has done something for us that is so rich, with handmaids.
And handmaids are not justâhandmaids are not just female servants, in my understanding and in my experience of how theyâve worked. That is to say, a coordinator can have an administrator or a helper or an assistant or a servant who works for him. He says, âGo do this,â and he goes and carries it out. Now, in some sense, handmaids function like that also. That is to say, a coordinator may have a handmaid assigned to him, and a particular problem comes along in terms of ministry to women in the branch or in the community, and the coordinator can direct the handmaid, âGo do this. Hereâs what needs to be done in the problem. Go do this.â
He can also relate to her in that situation, sometimes, a different way, because in his wisdom he sees that he needs to relate to it in a different way. And he says, âIâve heard this about this problem. You go and you find out what itâs about. And come back and tell me.â Thatâs depending upon her character as woman, plus her pastoral wisdom to get into the situation and to discern the problem, so that then the coordinator can have both the input heâs had along one line and the input heâs had from his handmaid, and then he can discern what needs to be done.
[Short interruption in the tape.]
. . . to relate to the handmaids, thatâs beyond just the individual handmaid assigned to the individual coordinator. And that is to say, for the body of coordinators to relate to the handmaids as a group, as a group of key women, mature, key, solid women consultants, if you will, who have a sense ofâfirst of all, they sense, they know and theyâre wise about what it is to be women of God. They understand what it is to be godly women, and they have their pulse onâno, they have their finger on the pulse of whatâs going on with the women in the community and what the Lord is doing with the women in the community. So for the handmaids to function as a body in this sense and to relate that kind of way to the elders is, I think, very important. And for the elders both to ask them for their input and to receive it with respect is extremely important.
That does not mean that the handmaids are ruling the women; the elders are ruling the whole shebang, right? But theyâre getting that kind of very solid input. I think for us, itâs been a tremendously important thing. So that was my first recommendation.
Secondly, I wanted to stressâwe should stress continually the importance, in the relationship between husbands and wives, of good communication and of ongoing consultation between the two of them, in terms of the needs and the wants that they both have: concerning the kids, concerning things they have joint responsibility over. This is not new. This is our standard teaching.
And I think husbands need to bring their wives into the decision-making process. Now, Iâm not talking about voting or something like that, but Iâm talking about husbands, in heading their wives they are heading their wives who are sisters, etc., and they have to hear what it is that their wives have to say, want to say, and have to take that into the whole process of decision-making for the family. I think that needs to be stressed.
Thirdly, third recommendation, and I wish we had more time. I think we need ongoing, serious reflection on Ephesians 5:22ff. by husbands, with their wives in view. And in a certain sense, I think, by analogy, the elders can look at that whole section in Ephesians 5:22 with their whole community in view, and maybe in a particular way with the women in their community in view. I think we need to ask ourselves, âWhat does it mean forâif weâre marriedâwhat does it mean for me as a husband to act towards my wife as Christ acts toward the church? What does it mean for me to lay down my life, to foster salvation, to foster sanctification, to cherish, to nourish and to care for her as I care for my own body?â I think we can ask the same set of questions of ourselves as a body of elders in relationship to our whole community, but thatâs another subject. But I think we have to continually see for ourselves and encourage that whole husbanding role that is there in Ephesians 5, and to see and to keep working on the fact that it is both spiritual and physical.
I think it has to do, too, with our sexuality. It has to do with taking very good care of our wives sexually, and it has to do with teaching the other men in the community to care for their wives properly sexually. Time after time, I see in preparing people for marriage the value of, late in the engagementânot early in the engagement, but late in the engagementâfor the man whoâs the head to take the groom under his wing and to do some very good, practical, detailed, concrete sex instruction on how to love your wife-to-be, and, when youâre married, how to love her sexually and how to make her happy sexually. Itâs extremely important. My own experience in dealing with all sorts of why people have marriage problems and things like this, is in so many of them there is a sexual misunderstanding or a sexual problem at the root of it. And I think we need to, again, along the whole lines of becoming fully human, fully Christian-human and excellent humans. And we ought to become very good men, very good husbands sexually in how we take care of our wives and in how we serve our wives sexually. I think thatâs a very important area.
Fourthly, another thing I want to say is this. I think itâs true for men and it is true for women. My experience is, in counseling and in pastoring, when things are working right sexually, particularly for women, when itâsâwhen the sexual experience is not only very fulfilling for the woman but very holy, very righteous, very pure in the marriage, and when thatâs all at peace, so many other things fall into place. We stress the importance of sexuality in everybodyâs personality. Itâs for sure true for men, and I think itâs even more true for women as being very, very important for them, if theyâre married, that that area be working right for them.
Okay, two more. And these last two areâno, Iâve got three more. Well, you know.
Fourth, this is kindâIâm just going to ask this as a question and you can all talk about it sometime. Itâs a very long sentence. What does honor and respect for my wife mean?, what is honor and respect for the women in my household or even my little daughters?, whatâs appropriate in terms of honor and respect for my 13-year-old, 11-year-old, four-year-old?, and the other women in the communityâwhat does honor and respect mean for me in relationship to all my sisters in the community?
They are persons. They are made in the image and likeness of God, in creation. They are the handiwork of God in the order of creation. And in the order of redemption they have been reborn as my sisters in Jesus Christ. So theyâre doubly related to me. They are coheirs with me in the inheritance of the Son. What implication does that have on my attitudes and my behavior in relationships? What are my attitudes towards women as women?
Now, I mean, the questionâjust asking the question, and we can have all sorts of discussion. And I am not, by any means, trying to promote some sort of, you know, letâs role play. And, you know, Iâll think of myself as a woman and Iâll look for the feminine in myself and Iâll see how I would want to be related to if I were in their position, you know? [Laughter.] And, you know, Iâm glad Iâve discovered Iâm my own mother, you know, and all that stuff. [Laughter.] So Iâm not doingâI donât want to do anything like that, okay?
But thereâIâm asking the question from the point of view of trying to see myself, and the rest of you guys, grow in a mature, solid, holy, pure, nonsexist, nonsex-object attitude towards women as persons, all the time respecting the uniqueness of their femininity, their womanliness.
Fifthly, granted the differences between men and women, right? Granted the differences between men and womenâand there are loads, and we have âyea, manyâ talks about all that, okay?âthere is a striking natural and supernatural sameness between men and women. For we both have intellect, will, capacity for natural gifts and talents, and capacity for spiritual gifts and services. There is a great sameness between men and women, as well as there are many differences.
And what are the implications of this for the training and education of women? For the training of their own minds for their mindsâ sakes? According to, you know . . . education according to Dr. [Kerry] Koller over there? And what are the implications of the training and education of women, not just for themselves, but for the life of the community and their future role in the community, as well as for their futureâthe future mission of the community, and the things that women may be called upon to do in the world?
This relates to that kind of, âKeep âem home, and donât train âem and donât send âem to schoolâ thing. Are the only women out in the world going to be those of the world, in positions of influence and significance and in the professions, etc.? Or do we need to be open to the training and development of our women for that kind of a service for the sake of the kingdom of God? Therefore, this has implications for deciding to develop your women to their full potential, as well as deciding to develop your men.
So, we need to think about the benefit to the society of women in the community for the advanced training of women. And we need to think about the benefit to the whole community for the education and training of women. And we need to think of the benefits to the explicit mission of the community âout there,â as weâre able to send out competent, well-trained women in the arts and in the sciences and in the professions and what have you. And also, just the benefit to the ongoing redemption of the world, because weâll have, you know, fuller Christian women in the world. Thatâs the fifth one.
And the sixth one is this. Now, this is the tricky one, the good one to run out of the room on when I finish! Granted the newfound importance of brotherhood, and the newfound importance of the friendships I have in the context of brotherhoodârefer to this morningâs talk on friendship, okay?âgranted the importance of brotherhood, and granted the importance of the fact that Iâve got men friends and how important that is, cannot my sister, who is also my wife, also be my friend?
Now, thatâs a tricky one because it is going to vary from marriage to marriage. It will have a lot to do with the selection process that went on when people got married, and the reason for which they got married, because theâwell, you have to go back and look at those criteria for friendship. And in fact, Iâm sure there are many societies in the world where friendship between a husband and wife would probably be rare because those kinds of criteria never enter into the selection process, although they might find out later that they are friends, or could be friends, okay?
So thatâs going to vary from marriage to marriage, but I donât want to close the door, myself, to the possibility of very meaningful friendship with my wife. But I want to say that while I still say how fundamentally important it is to me to have my men friends from among my brothers and to have all my brothers. So, itâs tricky, but I think itâs important that we think that through.
And the last one says, âAha! Cannot my sister, your wife, also be my friend? And cannot we as couples in the Lord enjoy, if not friendship, rich fellowship?â Now, those last two things are worth a lot of thought, and Iâm asking them as questions because Iâm not sure I have the answers. I think my sister, your wife, being my friend, according to what we were talking about this morning, probably thatâs not in the ballpark at all. I mean, what am I going to do, sharing my most intimate feelings and emotions and expressing my constant affection for your wife while I give her gifts? [Laughter.]
Now, I understand that, but at the same timeâone way to put it is this, you know, your wife is my sister. That means I do not treat her like a marble pillar, for one thing, okay? It means I treat her with a great deal of the right kind of New Testament behavior to our sisters. But it also may be that we can be, in some sense, friends, particularly in the context of the relationship we might have as couples.
What Iâm saying is this: we did start out in reaction to our society, in which there was a major problem, and still is a major problem, because of couple-to-couple relationships being the overall dynamic. But as we get everything else straightened out in the roles of men and women, and as we get everything else working right in terms of brotherhood and sisterhood and separate society, is not there also the possibility of significantly good fellowship relationships and mutual support relationships between couples as couples, with that kind of qualified friendship developing? I think we need to think along these areas and Iâm not saying that I have all the answers, or that we have all the answers, but I really am confident that, as we proceed to pray through these things and discern them and discuss them, Godâs going to give us a richer and richer and richer Christian human society. [Applause.]
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