I see most of your comments are directed at Mindy. She has not been back after leaving these comments (she left a lot of comments on this blog on different posts and she was not happy with what she read).

You’re right — apart from the OT law, women were treated — well let’s just say that I treat my animals in my care with more dignity, care and love than women in those days. My critters actually have more freedom and “rights” than women in those days.

Exactly. If folks thought treatment of women was horrible under OT law, look at what it was like for them apart from OT law.

And Christ and His apostles, including Paul, contrary to modern day feminist claims, actually liberated women. Yes, not in the way folks today want it. But in the way that they are not properties of men. They still are to submit in wedding vows, but men are never to treat them like properties and in fact as leaders are required to look after their needs and treat them the way they themselves want to be treated.

The same God of love is also God of wrath and justice. God hates sin, and all of humanity is guilty of sin against Him, from the smallest to the oldest.

Yet He showed His love in having His only begotten Son take our place at the cross to take away that sin all of us are guilty of and deserve death over.

Buddhists were not even blameless in history, too. Back when there were Christian missionaries in Japan, they were driven out and persecuted by Buddhist leaders. That would keep Japan isolated from Europe til the 1800s. And I say this as an Asian guy, raised in a culture where Buddhism is predominant.

” Women are supposed to be subservient to men at all times.”

Then do tell why in 1 Corinthians Paul stated that men are bound to their duties to their wives, and even in Ephesians 5 where submission of wives to husbands is taught, husbands are commanded to treat their wives as if they are their own bodies, so as not to mistreat them. And they are to treat them with the kind of servanthood role that Christ showed for the church, even to the point of sacrificial love.

That’s not true. I do grant the Crusaders behaved not Christ-like in how they slaughtered Muslim, Jewish, and Greek Orthodox civilians alike. But they did not start the Crusades, and the Muslims were not peaceful, not before then and certainly not at that time. In fact, the Crusades started because the Byzantine empire appealed to western Christianity for help given the attacks they received from the Muslims. Jerusalem did not get into the hands of the Muslim world by accident. It involved invasions into Christian lands for centuries prior to that point.

Yes, us Christians should be ashamed at how men behaved then in the name of Christ be it slaughtered of women and children during the Crusades or be it the actions of the Inquisition or be it offer of salvation by the papacy to those who agree to fight the Crusades (if it was just defensive warfare, that would not in of itself be wrong, but to make it a war for which one based one’s salvation on, that’s just plain horrible). But let’s give blame where blame is due. Neither side had their hands clean during the Crusades.

And yes, my salvation is certainly a reflection of God’s irresistible love

Have you shared this at your church before, or with some friends?

I can’t tell you how often I hear about the crusades as if that was God instituted. That’s like saying that if I do something wrong, you are going to reject Christ’s salvation. You are rejecting Christ’s salvation because you don’t like what you’ve seen such as the crusades.

You’re arguments are that you don’t like the way women are treated. Before you make such an argument, I would ask that you really read the bible instead of finding things you don’t like — read it as a whole instead of pulling things out of context — read it in the context of the time period (that worldview) and not in your American western 21st century worldview and maybe you would at least be able to understand their lives in those days.

You ask if God is a loving an benevolent God — YES YES and YES. Jesus spent 6 hours on the cross so that man may live. You reject that because you don’t like how women lived over 2000 years ago. Please at least try and understand that your worldview from the 21st century western society is vastly different than the worldview of ancient biblical times. That’s like comparing apples to onions (not even the same fruit .. apples to oranges).