But locomotive engineer McLean Prather glanced away from the tracks ahead to give me a look of weary acceptance. "Many view the proposed amendment as an overreaction to this one seemingly intractable,Dr."The woman's testimony will resume Thursday.: In an interview with The Dallas Morning News. said spokesman Mark Miner. "It's really exciting and a lot of fun to watch,So why would Abbott be on the side of these rogue states and oppose the treaty?So, This backward theology is more evidence of how religious traditions cannot adapt in the modern dayWILLIAM LAWRENCE Dean and Professor of American Church History Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist UniversityThe Biblical concept of submission must first be understood in terms of a believer's relationship to God The commandment says "You shall have no other gods before me" Jesus said "You cannot serve God and mammon" For Christians specifically and for adherents of the Abrahamic traditions generally submission to God is a foundational principleAnd for Christians specifically it is a liberating principle We receive salvation and deliverance through submitting our hearts and souls and minds and strength to God's grace thereby finding reconciliation with God despite our spiritual brokenness and sin We acquire the gift of being set free from fear since neither oppressive powers on earth or demonic forces in the cosmos can separate us from the love of God So for Christians submission to God is the pathway to freedomWhat happens too often is that the truths of the faith are diluted into half truths and the foundations of the faith are distorted into tilted interpretations Slaves are told to submit to the Lord by submitting to their owners Citizens are told to submit to the faith by submitting to a fuhrer And according to some views of scripture and some interpretations of Christian doctrine wives are told to submit to their husbandsIt is a corruption of the Christian faith to suggest that any human authority-a slave owner or a head of state or a spouse-should supplant God as the one to whom a person should submitHOWARD COHEN Lecturer in Jewish/Christian Relations and member of Congregation Shearith Israel and Congregation Beth Torah DallasSubmission means subservience and a yielding to the authority of another and in this context that authority is the male head of the family What else would we expect from a book written in "a world where women couldn't own property and could be divorced by their husbands saying the word three times" That might well be the state of "biblical womanhood" The question should be whether or not a book written copied translated and interpreted by human hands (Jews are cautioned that "the Torah was not written in Heaven" dating back to an ancient society and time should stand in the way of our attempts to create an egalitarian society Wasn't this same book used in the 19th century to justify slaveryThe Jewish people are about to begin our Passover holiday We are reminded in the retelling of the redemption from slavery that as we repair the world (tikkun olam) in every generation as each wrong is righted we will discover new disabilities that need to be undone The journey from slavery to freedom is an ongoing process which is not yet finished Gender equality is still on the listGEOFFREY DENNIS Rabbi Congregation Kol Ami in Flower Mound; faculty member University of North Texas Jewish Studies ProgramSorry there are plenty of places where the Hebrew Bible can be criticized for androcentrism sexism even misogynistic But there is no instruction for a wife to be submission to her husband nor is there any attempt to justify that subjugation as a form of imitatio dei Rather I'd point to the Book of Esther where Mordecai the Jew refuses to bow in submission to a human authority And I'd add "Why did God create only one human So that no one could say 'my father is greater than yours'" Since Jews also hold that males and female were created equal (Gen 1:27) I'd argue the same principle applies in gender relationsDARRELL BOCK Executive Director of Cultural Engagement Howard G Hendricks Center for Christian Leadership and Cultural Engagement Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies Dallas Theological SeminaryMost discussions about gender and submission are about power and control That is where most cultural discussion takes us by default It sets up a war between the sexes That is tragic What I see in Scripture and a text like Eph 5:22-33 where love and submission are juxtaposed does not take us there The husband who is to love is to love like Christ gave himself for the church This is not about power and control but love and service The wife is responsive to that direction in life Together they are called cooperatively to work together like two instruments in harmonyThere are no real power words in this text We see words like nurture care for give respect and love When submission is defined in this mutually caring environment it is also redefined so that power and control are not chief the concern but mutual caring nourishing and enrichment where trust and respect abide It is not about me as a person but us as a unit In the end that is a redefinition in terms and a radical reframing on love submission and mutuality We all could benefit from reflecting on this reframing of the categoriesLARRY BETHUNE Senior Minister University Baptist Church AustinThe biblical instruction that wives be "submissive" to their husbands reflects the Roman household codes common in the dominant imperial culture in the first centuries of the Christian era Parallel writings are found in the non-biblical sources of the day?