Meet An Atheist: Baptist Pastor Fires Teacher For Being A Woman

Monday, August 21, 2006

Baptist Pastor Fires Teacher For Being A Woman

And he looks like such a nice guy.

Evidently, there is a lot more than meets the eye to this story. Seems the teacher was not 'on the same page' with this pastor and her firing was in response to that. Some interesting local video and comments by church leaders from a local television station are here.

News Video
Paul Harvey comments on the story

The Pastors Blog - He needs some atheist comments

Church Fires Teacher For Being A Woman

WATERTOWN, N.Y. - 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.

4 Comments:

At 8/21/2006 4:37 PM, Kevin said...: I read your comments on the First Baptist Church. I'm not an Atheist but I think you made an excellent point.
At 8/22/2006 10:01 AM, Eric said...: Hey, that's in my neck of the woods.

While detasteful, it is the church's right to hire and fire employees. I just hope that this reminds everyone why the church can not receive government money without equal opportunity hiring and firing. They can not be trusted with that responsibility.

This also reinforces my earlier assertion. If pastors/popes/laymen/... are free to re-re-re-interpret the bible then how much of it is the word of god and how much is the will of men?

I also hope that the locals see him for the freak that he is and toss him off the board.
At 8/22/2006 12:26 PM, say no to christ said...: Ah, christianity rears its ugly sexist head, once again. What really gets me is that christians claim that there is no sexiam in the bible. ha!
At 9/10/2006 4:13 PM, weemaryanne said...: What I don't understand is: Why do women keep going back to church?

If every woman in that congregation were to stand up and walk out the next time that jerk steps into the pulpit, the entire christian edifice would disintegrate like a wet napkin.