Half the Church Quotes

“I love how Victor Hamilton puts it: '[Kenegdo] suggests that what God creates for Adam will correspond to him. Thus the new creation will be neither a superior nor an inferior, but an equal. The creation of this helper will form one-half of a polarity and will be to man as the South Pole is to the North Pole.' She will be his strongest ally in pursuing God's purposes and his first roadblock when he veers off course.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Instead of an unstoppable force for good and justice in the world and a deadly threat to the Enemy, male-female relationships have been dismantled of power.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Jesus' final act of public ministry was to address the needs of a widow, his own mother, whose eldest son was dying before her very eyes.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Is Jesus' whole body thriving and stronger than ever today because for over two millennia 'the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work' (Ephesians 4:16 NIV)? Do the world's headlines read, 'See how they love one another!'--not of tight-knit homogeneous subgroups of Christians, but of a bone-deep oneness that inexplicably thrives within wide-ranging diversity and denominational and theological differences and reaches across the gender divide?

In two thousand years, how far have we come in attaining that kaleidoscopic trinitarian oneness Jesus longs to see? How is God's reputation in the world enhanced because of us? Has the world changed for the better, is the Enemy in retreat, and is justice flourishing in the earth because the Blessed Alliance of men and women is formidable and fully deployed for God's kingdom?”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“we must not only get on our knees and pray for God's kingdom to come, but also get up and participate in the answer to our prayers by bringing the promised good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, freeing the captives, and releasing those held in captive by the darkness. That is, after all, what ezers who follow Jesus are supposed to do.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“The Proverbs 31 woman is introduced as a 'woman hayil' the same Hebrew word used for Boaz and signifies 'strength' and 'power' like that of an 'elite warrior similar to the hero of the Homeric epic.' The meaning, however, gets lost in translation, for whenever hayil applies to a woman in the Bible, translators have opted for softer English words ('virtuous,' 'excellent,' 'capable,' or 'noble character'). These words don't begin to do justice to the meaning, for in reality 'it may well be that a woman of this caliber had all the attributes of her male counterpart.' She is a woman of valor--an apt description of an ezer.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Adam is one. But the God he represents is trinitarian--three in one. A solitary image bearer is missing a key component of God's image and is therefore incapable of revealing God in the world, much less fulfilling his destiny as a human being. Little wonder God says, 'It is not good for the man to be alone.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“The whole human race, beginning with Eve, comes from Adam's wounded side. A second race--a new redeemed humanity--comes from Jesus' wounded side. Jesus is the second Adam. Even before there is despair, God foreshadows hope. The creation of the woman is a sacred, holy moment.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Genesis 2 is not out of synch with Genesis 1. Nor is the Bible's opening chapter a rough draft that God tosses out to start over with a scaled-down vision when he sculpts the first woman into being. The larger vision he is casting in the beginning remains firmly in place. Genesis 1 draws our attention vertically to the foundational and utterly vital bond between women and God by revealing our image-bearer calling. Everything about us depends on a solid link with God. For both men and women, this relationship alone completes us, defines our identity, and gives our whole lives meaning and purpose. Genesis 2 focuses us horizontally on the second most foundational relationship in all creation--the relationship between male and female.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Does the gospel only offer a guarded, small message for women? Or does the gospel overturn the culture's small, diminishing, and often degrading message for women with a clarion call to live within the boundless parameters Jesus defines -- to "love the Lord your God will all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength" (Mark 12:30)?

Who tells us who we are? Who alone has the right to define our worth? Are we at the mercy of gender, culture, circumstances, and fear? Or is there a Voice that trumps all others to give us an indestructible identity and rich, durable kingdom purposes for our lives?”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“This is a moment for believers to embody a gospel culture where both halves of the church are thriving because following Jesus produces a climate of honor, value, and love and we are serving God together as he intended from the beginning. This is a golden opportunity to restore to women the indestructible and elevated identity that they have inherited as God's daughters and that a fallen world has stolen from them.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“God never retires his image bearers.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“I believe the church of Jesus Christ should be first in line to champion the empowerment of women and girls throughout the world to become contributing members in their societies.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“God is shaking his daughters awake and summoning us to engage. His vision for us is affirming and raises the bar for all of us. We cannot settle for less. We have work to do. There's a kingdom to build, and what we do truly matters. Our compass is fixed on Jesus. We can no longer listen to those who call us to love him with less than all our heart and soul and strength and mind. We may not have titles, position, or power in the eyes of others, but leadership is in our DNA. The call to rule and subdue places kingdom responsibility on our shoulders.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Believers--male and female--form a body. Not just any body, but the body of Christ.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Our oneness...leaves DNA evidence that Jesus has been here.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“No tactic of the Enemy and no entrenched blindness on our part have the power to deter God from seeing his vision for us to completion. God's secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure. 'And this is his plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ--everyting in heaven and on earth' (Ephesians 1:10)--including his sons and daughters.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“The gospel isn't supposed to be comfortable, for it points us back to a cross. It up-ends all our paradigms and pushes us beyond the confines of self-interest to pour ourselves out for others. Jesus' gospel brings salt and light to a tasteless, dark world. His image bearers are agents of those life-transforming forces.

The whole gospel we are commissioned to spread means double good news to the poor, for we bring justice and mercy and Jesus to them. A partial gospel lacks that power. This is how the kingdom of heaven begins to gain ground and the Enemy is forced to relinquish strongholds of evil once thought impenetrable to kingdom forces.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Privilege and prosperity come with responsiblity.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“The endless, unrelieved suffering of so many who are unable to deliver themselves is a reality we can no longer ignore.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“whatever power and privileges Jesus' followers possess are gifts to be held loosely and wielded for the care and benefit of others...”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Women in today's world--both those who suffer oppression and those who enjoy unprecedented opportunities--would find Jesus' interactions with women irresistible, life-giving, and profoundly healing.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Jesus firmly and consistently reinforced human equality by spending a lot of time in the margins of society, most notably in relationships with women. He didn't simply bring relief and comfort to the down and out. He engaged, recruited, and mobilized for his kingdom people who didn't count for anything in the eyes of society or of religious leaders. His interactions with women violated patriarchal propriety and repeatedly shocked his disciples.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Jesus told his disciples, 'I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 28:18). He confers a derived authority on his male and female image bearers as his coregents--not to rule over each other, but to rule the earth to ensure both welfare and flourishing.

Equality is a foundational truth that extends to every human being and is rooted firmly in our image-bearer identity. The Bible doesn't nuance or debate equality, but sets it in stone. Equality distinguishes the kingdom of God from kingdoms of this world that rank, rate, discriminate, and privilege some human beings over others. No second class rating, no marginalization, oppression, or mistreatment can alter this rock solid truth, for it is grounded in our unchanging God.

Both concepts were distorted by the fall, along with everything else. God's image bearers turned authority and ruling on one another instead of jointly pursuing God's glory for the benefit of all creation. Equality went missing from human relationships as the human race plunged into self-seeking, murder, violence, power, and oppression. Evidence of how far the human race has fallen is rampant in the appalling oppression and violence perpetrated against women throughout the world.

The New Testament restores authority and equality in the teachings of Jesus and the writings of Paul in ways that are truly 'not of this world.' Jesus did not come to affirm or make slight alterations to the world's way of doing things. He came to rebuild both load-bearing walls--to reconnect a lost and fallen humanity to our Creator and to reestablish the Blessed Alliance between men and women. His construction methods take us down a different, countercultural path.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“This debate has repercussions on how we live for God, how we relate to our neighbors both near and far, and how we connect with our Christian brothers. It affects the valuing of women, the quality of our marriages, and the teachings and behavioral patterns we pass on to our children. It shapes our ideas of what it means to be part of the body of Christ, how we develop and use our gifts, and what Jesus asks of us in fulfilling his mission for the world.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“Rich, collaborative, interdependent relationships between God's sons and daughters are vital to both genders and make the body of Christ stronger. The Blessed Alliance fuels the kingdom of God and must not be displaced by an atmosphere of tension, fear, and mistrust.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“From what I can see, women and girls are a rich and largely untapped goldmine--a powerhouse of blessing and gifts for the church, of strength and wisdom for our brothers, and of enormous good for the world. After all, women do hold up half the sky.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“God's tactics are counterintuitive to our male-centered world, but therein lies the surprise for the Enemy, for the world, and for us. For when men and women are allied together, richer discussions result in better decisions, the elimination of blind spots, and a greater kingdom force in the world. If you don't believe me, just compare Esther, Mordecai, Mary, and Joseph each operating solo with what they accomplished by working together.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“God's image bearers were divided, and the battle of the sexes commenced. Instead of ruling and subduing the earth, they turned against one another and sought to rule and subdue each other.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women

“When men are called to full-fledged kingdom living but the other half of the church is asked to sit on the sidelines, there is no Blessed Alliance, the bride of Christ limps, and we misrepresent God's oneness.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Half the Church: Recapturing God's Global Vision for Women