Wives and the Homemaking Concentration
Posted byWe are pleased to have published a piece by Terri Stovall, Ph. D., Dean of Women’s Programs at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, regarding their controversial undergraduate homemaking concentration. Click here to read Dr. Stovall’s piece, Teaching What is Good – The Homemaking Concentration at Southwestern.
In the fall of 2003 I received a phone call from a church inquiring about my availability to be their pastor. The conversation was going fine until we got to my wife. As indicated on my resume, she was a school teacher. The gentleman I was talking to said he noticed that my wife worked and wondered if she would continue to do that if the Lord led our family to their church. I said, “Of course. She considers what she does in the school as a ministry to the children she teaches.”
The response I received from the church was that they did not want the wife of the pastor to work outside the home and were willing to pay the pastor enough to make that happen. I told them that I appreciated their willingness to financially support their pastor and his family, but both my wife and I felt she was called to be a Christian witness in our public school system. Needless to say my family did not move there. I am not criticizing that church. I believe in congregational polity. I do not believe any church should dictate to a pastor that his wife should or should not work outside of the home.
The reason I tell this story is that many have mischaracterized the homemaking degree at Southwestern. The mischaracterization has led to images not representative of what Southwestern is trying to accomplish with this program. SBC Today supports this degree program. We feel it is desperately needed in a day when many Christians have taken their focus off the home. Southwestern is not trying to keep women in the kitchen, as some would suggest, but they are trying to provide an option for those who may or may not have been called to stay at home.
We are grateful that Dr. Stovall has given us a concise synopsis of what the degree is about. Below are some facts:
1. The degree is biblically rooted.
2. No woman will be forced to take any of the classes. In fact, women are allowed to enroll or not enroll in any program the seminary offers.
3. Southwestern has not said they are against women working outside of the home. What they are for is a renewed focus on the home that has been taken away by modern feminist philosophy.
4. The program will involve learning Greek or Latin. It is not solely based on how to bake. Women will learn various disciplines that will aid them in following God’s call, wherever that may lead.
I personally would hope that this program becomes the blue print for all of our seminaries. It is needed and it is biblical.
18 Comments
September 10th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Brother Robin,
If I am ever in Fort Worth, I do look forward to sampling a cookie. Of course while I sample the cookie it will be a delight to also discuss various points of theology.
Blessings,
Tim
September 10th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
SBC Today,
I am sure some will not fully appreciate Dr. Stovall’s rationale for this particular Women’s track at SW. I think her balanced and sane defense delivered justification enough–academic, biblical and cultural–to demonstrate SW’s well-developed goals for the program.
The evident irony is, in a culture deplorably known for encouraging easy divorce, single parenting (recall Murphy & Quayle), homosexual partnering/parenting, lifestyles demanding 2 adult incomes, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, the Christian community would welcome a program that attempts to address, not every challenge, but some very specific ones.
Instead, we get satires, caricatures, slurs and insulting innuendo as worse–and in some cases, far more worse–than the watchdogs of the secular elite media.
I hope Dr. Stovall is taken seriously. I trust also those sincere, academic critics who possess no cutting blade against SWBTS and/or Dr. Patterson, that they will, before assuming the program is misguided, listen to the students themselves toward whom the track is targeted. Colin McGahey has a great post on students’ testimonies ( http://seminaryblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/homemaking-concentration.html )
Thanks, SBC Today. With that, I am…
Peter
September 10th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
hey yall…..lookin’ good! i’m already enjoying the new blog.
david
September 10th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Women deserve a seminary education. This is expensive tuition for a homemaker’s program. You did however change my mind on your view Robin. I must admit that what you said did cause me to retract some of my statements.
Peter: The problem I have with the statements on Colin’s blog is that they are not necessarily SWBTS students. They do not name themselves, their denomination and I gathered that they were not SWBTS having participated in the blog where these conversations came from with these same posters.
September 10th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Sis. Debbie Kaufman
I have reinstated your comment after you allowed us to edit the off topic comment. Thank you for working with us. We want your opinion on the subjects posted and welcome you at any time.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
In my defense I believe it has a lot to do with this subject, but have no choice but to bow to the final decision.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Sis. Debbie
Thank you for your graciousness in this matter. I do not consider you warned in any official status. These next few weeks will be time of trial and error for all of us, especially me. We want all to comment, but we just ask for commentators to abide by our policies.
Thank you again.
Bro. Robin
September 10th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Thank you for writing a different opinion on this than what I’ve read. I do not agree with the women’s homemaking degree, but I appreciate you graciously stating the other side of the issue. My problem seems that so much attention is focused upon the woman making the home. It seems to me that both the man and the woman make a happy home. It is a mutual covenant that both must work at. I’m fine with a woman or a man who wants to stay home if their spouse can take care of living expenses. With the divorce rate so high, I just don’t think you can pin this solely on a woman working.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Sister Debbie,
We edited your comment #4 and posted it. I do pray that it did not stray to far from what you were trying to say. We kept what we felt was the subject line that was being addressed. If in the future we address the issues you raised, feel free to post those thoughts.
If this does not meet your approval let Brother Robin know as he is emailing you.
Brother Ray,
First, it is 10pm on the east coast. I do not know what time zone you are in but, I have to get to bed. I did desire to respond to your comment.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom. Therefore, the church Brother Robin referenced would not have been any problem for us. As you can tell Brother Robin’s wife sees her time in the public schools as her ministry and I strongly support her in that effort. My wife sees her ability to volunteer when she can and address needs in our daughter’s school whenever she can as her ministry. Two Godly ladies that are fulfilling their respective places of ministry to which God has called them. The degree at SWBTS is not a degree arranged to keep the women in the kitchen. As Dr. Stovall stated it is a degree to enable a woman to fulfill a calling that God has placed on her life.
Thanks for the time and good night from the east coast. A;so known as God’s state. That is the reason he painted the sky Carolina Blue.
LOL.
Blessings,
Tim
September 11th, 2007 at 12:29 am
C.B.
There’s always email
September 11th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Tim: Robin graciously emailed me and I gave permission for the editing.
September 11th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Oh yeah, I almost forgot.
Thank you, Dr. Stovall.
I have been fighting for this degree like a Walker Hound in a cage with twenty or thirty Bobcats because I know it is needed by many, many, young ministry couples out there today.
Why don’t you lobby to get this degree started in the other five SBC seminaries? They need it also.
cb
September 11th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
YES! I am with CB on this one! Let’s try and get the other seminaries to follow suit. And ALSO our Baptist colleges. so very very needed. My son was able to cook, sew, do laundry, iron and mother because of what I taught him at home and the home economics class he took in highschool. His wife didn’t know how to do any of those things when they married. Why? because her mother didn’t have time to teach her anything because she was working outside the home.
What I want to know is why so many Southern Baptists seem ready to dump on something so needed in our society today? selahV
September 11th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Bro. C.B.
Thank you for your unwavering voice. I have watched your comments here and on other blogs. Your experiences have reinforced the vision for the priority of the home and its potential for ministry.
As for the other institutions, I think I shall stick with my little corner of the world for now.
Many Blessings,
Terri Stovall
Southwestern Seminary
September 11th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Dr. Stovall,
You are probably very wise to “stick” in your corner and leave the lobby work to others. As you pilot this degree program to success the other five will see the wisdom in it and shortly follow you guys with a similar idea.
cb
September 12th, 2007 at 8:39 am
In regards to the the homemaking degree program,
I have heard that it is equally expensive as other seminary degrees. If this is true, then it needs to be changed so the classes that are exclusive to the degree ( not the greek and latin) are at discounted rates of tuition. after all, why does someone with a doctor of theology need to teach cooking classes?
September 12th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Michael,
You ask a good question and one that will allow for some clarification.
The Homemaking Concentration is part of The College at Southwestern, not a part of the graduate program in the seminary. The tuition is the same as other courses in our Bachelor’s program as they all count towards a Bachelor’s degree.
And you are correct. A doctorof theology will not be teaching our nutrition and design courses. Rather we will be using faculty who have graduate studies in Family and Consumer Sciences (Home Economics).
Blessings,
Terri Stovall
Southwestern Seminary
September 12th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Dr. Stovall
You beat me to the comment. Thank you for clarifying the position of the seminary.
God Bless
Robin