What would your response be?

I think I would always invite people to think a little bit about what they're actually reading when they're reading the Bible.

Um, the Bible has so many different kinds of texts, so many genres of text, and even today we wouldn't read a letter someone wrote as a science textbook or read poetry as if it's a kind of recipe book.

We kind of understand how we should engage with different texts depending on the genre, and this is partly what we need to do when we're reading the Bible, is understand when we're reading letters, some of which we know were written by Paul, the church's first theologian.

Others are contested, so we don't-- We think it might be him, but it might have been somebody else.

Um, these texts are him writing to churches in his day and time, advising them on best practice based on the realities of the day.

Um, so for in contexts where women might not have access to certain kinds of freedoms of their own or educations of their own, he's writing in that kind of world, but he's also writing in ways that I would think are quite progressive.

I'm wondering, how has engaging with womanist scholars such as Delores Williams shaped your own understanding of scripture and of church leadership?