Church Fires Teacher for being Female

Church Fires Teacher for Being Female

Maybe you have seen this, but I thought this needed to be posted.

WATERTOWN, N.Y. (Aug. 21) - The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job - outside of the church. The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.
The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."
The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman."I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.
Mayor Jeffrey Graham, however, was bothered by the reasons given Lambert's dismissal.
"If what's said in that letter reflects the councilman's views, those are disturbing remarks in this day and age," Graham said. "Maybe they wouldn't have been disturbing 500 years ago, but they are now."
Lambert has publicly criticized the decision, but the church did not publicly address the matter until Saturday, a day after its board met.
In a statement, the board said other issues were behind Lambert's dismissal, but it did not say what they were.

Way to go Pastor, I think you just got yourself voted out of office. And thumbs up to the Mayor for being bothered by what the Pastor said and did. A woman who has been teaching for 54 years, is fired due to the Pastor leading the church to adopt a literal interpretation of the Bible. Really good P. R. I guess I thought Paul was talking about not teaching men, but women could teach children and women, is what I have always heard the literal interpretation to be. But then my understanding was that Paul was talking about a particular situation in the church that young Timothy was Pastoring. When I looked at the pictures of the two, it looks like to me a young whipper snapper firing his grandma. But then who am I to say anything, I am just a woman. "Hey Mary you can come over to my denomination and teach or preach or lead or whatever God calls you to do."