Ok, let me see if I can get all this out concisely.  I am on an
information gathering venture regarding the various expressions of
Christianity/churches there are.  
        My husband and I come from very different, but completely
Christian backgrounds.  I was a Lutheran when I met him and he was a
born and raised Church of Christ member.  At first I agreed with a lot
of what the C of C was about, I wanted to move from the liturgical
based Lutheran church to something a little more Biblical based.
However over the last year, I've been regretting changing to the
Church of Christ for a number of reasons - for one thing I am not a
fundamentalist and believe that a few things in the Bible are
socio-cultural in nature and don't relate to the Christian doctrine.
One of my sorest spots is the role of women.  I believe that through
Mary and other women, Chris validated women as worthy disciples - but
in the C of C the writings of Paul are taken without exception and I
am told that I am not an equal partner in my marriage but the lesser
member, I am to submit to my husband in all things (if I hear that
verse one more time....) and I am not to take an active role in
anything which might be construed as putting me in authority over men
(ie leading prayers, conducting Bible studies etc).   The last straw
was when the Elders at our church came down on one of our college
groups because it was all-women and they wanted a man to lead the
study.
Also my husband and I really resent the way everyone at our church
feels that if you aren't a conservative republican - you aren't a REAL
Christian (I got told that nobody who voted for Clinton should call
themselves a Christian).  Hence we are subjected during the service to
long prayers calling for things we flatly dont agree with.  We are
also don't agree with the C of C's dread of any new "movement" being
led by the young people.

So, we have been church hunting with NO success.  I want a reasonably
biblical based church where women are viewed as whole people no matter
what their calling ( C of C really looked down on career women).
Christopher is looking for a church with deeply rooted religious
convictions, with adult baptism and a church where the members still
bring their Bibles to service.

We are so confused here and we're drifting around trying to find a
place where we both feel loved and can express our faith honestly and
without reservation.  If anyone can point us in a direction we'd be
thrilled!
I'm afraid that it will be very hard for me to go back to C of C and
even harder for me to stay churchless for long.

any responses would be welcome


the diel family