Let me elaborate on my earlier comments on women pastors. To understand my earlier comments, you've gotta understand my background. For the longest time, the word "liberal" was the equivalent of evil for me. No kidding. I grew up in a very politically conservative home - we'd campaign for different republican candidates, we'd protest abortion clinics and listening to Rush Limbaugh. In school, I was the president of our Young Republican's club in high school, and I would fervently argue my views in my A.P. Government class, and any other class that I got. Being a republican was very much a part of my identity, and this carried over into my faith. I would stack-rank other churches based on how liberal or conservative they were compared to mine - and some of the worst, in my perspective, were those churches with women Pastors. It wasn't as much a biblical deal, but more of what a woman pastor represented.
About five years ago, I was visiting Willow Creek church and picked up a tape on "Women in Ministry", which was very similar to the article I posted earlier. I came to a tough crossroads in my life, because even though I didn't like the idea of women in pastoral leadership roles in the church, biblically I believed it was right. So my journey continued. A few years ago I was at Xtreme camp and I heard a few of my kids describing our church, and one student described it as "Liberal". I asked them what that meant, and their explanation was "It's a church where people love and include everyone". This rocked my world, and it's been slowing changing me over time to the point that I'm okay with someone telling me that my church is liberal, because at the core, I know what we're about. This is a huge step for me.
I'm still moving, but I'm not where I want to be, and I don't even understand all of the reasons why. It's not a cut and dry deal for me, but I'm much less of a misogynist pig than I was five years ago.