Are Christianity and
feminism compatible?
That
depends on what you think is essential to Christianity, and what is essential
to feminism. Feminists differ among themselves. They distinguish between
liberal, Marxist, radical, socialist, psychoanalytic, existentialist, neopagan,
postmodernist and black feminism (or womanism). And many younger Third Wave
Feminists eschew politics and revel in narcissistic “anything goes” sex, while
accusing their 1960’s Second Wave foremothers of “stodgy” old fashioned moralism.
There are
also biblical feminists. In his article Jesus Was a Feminist, Leonard Swidler
defines a feminist as “a person who is in
favor of, and who promotes, the equality of women with men, a person who
advocates and practices treating women primarily as human persons (as men are
so treated) and willingly contravenes social customs in so acting.1 He
argues that by this definition Jesus was a feminist.
In
contrast, Annie Laurie Gaylor, an editor of Freethought Today, scorns the
possibility of any compatibility between Christianity and feminism. She asks, "How can you be a feminist if you
refuse to defer to men on Earth, but submit to a divine authority? . . .
Feminism cannot be argued by authority - much less by male, supernatural
authority."2
We must
admit from the start that Christians and feminists have been guilty of
stereotyping one another, without reading each other's literature or even
talking to each other. Many Christians unfairly equate all feminism with
self-centered careerism, the breakdown of the family, and the wholesale
rejection of men. Many non-Christian feminists equate Christianity and the
church with the worst of patriarchy and male chauvinism. They seem unaware of
the alliance between Christian and non-Christian women in the nineteenth
century feminist, abolitionist and temperance movements. They are ignorant of
the role of Christians in unbinding the feet of Chinese women and rescuing girl
babies from infanticide and temple prostitution in India. It was a Christian,
William Carey, who fought against sati
(widow burning, upon the funeral pyre of the husband) in Calcutta, a
center for goddess worship, where woman was called devi or goddess. The Indian
writer and political activist, Vishal Mangalwadi points out the irony of the
fact that "the entire religious establishment of the goddess cult"
resisted Carey as "he fought for
women's rights because he believed that they were made in the image of our
heavenly Father - who is neither male nor female."3
Those of
us who are Christians must admit the church's misdeeds and inconsistencies. It
is true that women have been denied education and the vote, barred from using
their gifts in the church and the culture, even told to submit to
wife-battering – all in the name of the Christian God. But those failings do
not negate the fact that, the more Christians have lived out what the Bible
actually teaches, the more they have been a force for liberation from all kinds
of oppression.
Gendered God Language
Before
considering gender in the broad biblical drama, a few words about God language
are in order. This is a big issue in Feminist Theology. Radical feminist Mary
Daly attacks the fatherhood of God saying, “If
God is male, then the male is god.” But the biblical writers do not equate
God’s Fatherhood with maleness.
The
intention of gendered God-language in the Bible - metaphors, images and
pronouns, whether male or female - is not to communicate that God is a sexual
being. God is Spirit. He created and transcends sexuality. Therefore Moses prohibited making either male
or female images of God as equally idolatrous (see Deuteronomy 4:15-16).
The Bible
also teaches that men and women are equally the image of God. Neither sex is a more accurate likeness of
God than the other.
Gendered
God language in the Bible communicates the personal nature of God, who relates
to His people as a personal being and not as an impersonal object or force.
While the New Testament in particular addresses God as Father, and the majority
of God language is “masculine,” the Biblical writers included feminine/maternal
God imagery as well. For example, the prophet Isaiah describes God "like a woman in childbirth"
(Isa. 42.7) and he writes "as a
mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you" (Isa. 66.13). Deuteronomy 32:18 reads “You forgot the God
who conceived you and gave you birth" (or “writhed in labor”.) Male sex organs are never associated with God,
but the womb and breasts are. This kind of metaphorical language warns against
identifying God as a male.
The
absence of a female consort, and antipathy to the goddess in the Bible, did not
come from sexism, but from the monotheistic nature of the Biblical God. The
belief in one sovereign, ethical, creator God, who created by his word, not by
sex, stood in stark contrast to the polytheistic fertility religions of the
surrounding peoples. In fact, embracing
polytheism, nature religion and goddess worship, has never guaranteed a more
just or egalitarian life for girls or women.
The city
of Athens was named after Athena, the great goddess of wisdom, yet the women of
Athens were some of the most oppressed and denigrated in known history. In
Corinth during the New Testament period, over 1000 slave girls and boys served
as sacred prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite alone. Most of them had been abandoned as infants
and sold into temple service. There was
nothing "liberating" about the lives of sacred prostitutes, even though
they served a female deity.
The rich
diversity of language about God, and names for God in the Bible indicate the
limitations of human language to fully and adequately describe an infinite
divine being. Gendered language is unavoidable, as the biblical God also
personal, and persons are either male or female. But gendered God language in
the bible is neither sexist nor sexual in intent.
Created Equal in God's Image
The Bible
teaches clearly that men and women were created equally in the image of God,
and God said that was very good (Gen 1:31). This central biblical teaching
contrasted radically with the ideas of the culture of that time. It gives a
powerful basis for the equal value and dignity of every human being - including
male and female, young and old, every racial, class and ethnic group, the
physically and mentally well and the sick and disabled.
Genesis
also mandates work, the building of families and culture, care for the
environment – all as shared male and female responsibilities (Gen 1:28; 2:15,
18). The traditionalist adages “A woman's
place is in the home" and "The
man is the breadwinner" are neither traditional nor biblical. Until
the Industrial Revolution wrenched work out of the home, men and women raised
bread and children together from the home.
The origin
of male and female from the same substance is the physical basis for marriage
and its goodness. During the ascendancy of Greece and later Rome, this teaching
became particularly significant in contrast to the Greek belief that women were
made of inferior material from men. They were considered to be more like animals
and soulless. There was no way an upper-class educated Greek man could have an
equal relationship with a woman. So men had wives to produce male heirs and
keep house, but they preferred other men for sexual and intellectual intimacy.
In the ancient Graeco-Roman world, male homosexuality was a clear putdown to
women as inferior beings.
In the
biblical creation account, Eve is described as Adam's “equal and adequate helper” (ezer kenegdo). Although the English
word helper can imply subordination, the Hebrew word ezer never does. In the
twenty-one times it appears in the Old Testament, it almost always refers to
God, the mighty helper of his people (see Deut 33:26, 29; Ps 121:1).
According
to Genesis, no sexual hierarchy existed at creation. In Francis Schaeffer's
words, man and woman lived in an "unstructured
democracy"4 before the fall. There was a "golden
age" before patriarchy, a question feminists debate.
Rebellion Begets Patriarchy
The
problems began in the third chapter of Genesis. Here, human rebellion (sin)
against the Creator resulted in much tragic alienation, including sexual
hierarchy, rivalry and exploitation. In feminist terminology, patriarchy was
born. It is crucial to understand that the curse in Genesis 3:16 is not a
command from God, but a tragic description of what life would be like in a
broken world. As with the other results of the fall - sickness and death, pain
in childbirth, alienation from nature and work - the appropriate human response
is not resignation, but resistance.
Life
between the Fall and the coming of redemption through Christ included good and
bad in the male-female relationship. The Old Testament portrays three strands.
First, there is a dark strand, an honest record of human sin, including stories
of men raping and exploiting women, and women (like Rachel) deceiving and
manipulating men. God did not condone any of this.
A brighter
strand appears in the Old Testament law, which curbed or regulated patriarchal
practices (such as polygamy) in the direction of greater justice and protection
of the vulnerable. God did not establish or condone these practices but allowed
them temporarily because, as Jesus said in reference to divorce, people’s (in
this case husbands’) “hearts were hard”
(Mt 19:8). A “good” law does not legislate God’s ideal, but leads a very
imperfect group of people toward it.
The
extended family-clan-tribal system of ancient Israel, though undeniably
patriarchal, provided an effective social welfare system for the vulnerable.
Widows, single mothers, fatherless children and aliens were cared for within
local communities. Modern individualism, with its reliance on the state to care
for the needy, is neither as personal nor as efficient.
Finally, the brightest strand shows through in
powerful women like Deborah, Huldah and Miriam, who were called by God to the
highest positions of religious and political leadership. Proverbs 31 praises a
strong, competent wife who juggles a multitude of economic and nurturing
responsibilities. She is paid for her work and praised in the private and
public sphere. We also see a beautiful
celebration of monogamous sexual intimacy and mutuality in the Song of Solomon.
Jesus Challenged Cultural Norms
A new era
began with the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus came into a world, where in
law and life, women were treated as inferior in every way. By his teaching and
behavior, he constantly challenged the patriarchal norms of his culture.
Rejecting the practice of keeping women separate and silent, Jesus included
them in his traveling band of disciples (theological students). He surprised
everyone by rebuking Martha for her preoccupation with "women's work"
(cooking and serving men) and praising her sister Mary for studying theology
with the men (Lk 10:41-42).
In a
culture that blamed women for male lust, Jesus put the blame where it
belonged--on the men who looked lustfully at women. Jesus and later the apostle
Paul abolished the double standard regarding divorce and adultery, whereby a
man could send his wife away at a whim, and she had no equivalent power.
Husbands and wives have the same responsibility to avoid adultery, and the same
rights to divorce when the marriage covenant has been radically broken. And both Jesus and Paul affirmed singleness
as a valuable choice for men and women (Mt 19:12; I Cor 7).
In a
culture that so devalued a woman's word that it prohibited women from
testifying in court, Jesus chose women to be the first witnesses of his
resurrection. That distinction conferred a unique authority on women in the
early church. This fact was not lost on
the Romans, many of whom scorned the Christian faith for the authority it
recognized and invested in women.
Dorothy Sayers wrote this
about Jesus of Nazareth:
Perhaps it is no wonder that the women
were first at the cradle and last at the cross.
They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been
another. A prophet and teacher who
never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never
made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help
us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”;
who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who
took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere
for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female;
who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as
he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the
whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could
possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything
“funny” about woman's nature.5
Jesus the
Messiah reconciled God and humanity by his death and resurrection. Soon after
these momentous events, the Christian church was born with the coming of the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The apostle Peter quoted the prophet Joel (Acts
2:17-18), announcing to a multi-racial crowd that the Spirit of God was
removing sex, class and age barriers to ministry (Joel 2:28-29).
Full Recognition of Women
Before
Pentecost, circumcision was the sign of membership in the community of God's
people. Obviously, full membership could apply only to Jewish males. After
Pentecost, baptism became the sign of entering into the community of believers.
The inclusiveness of this sign is underscored in a very early baptismal formula
found in Galatians 3:28: "There is
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in
Christ Jesus." The things that used to divide and rank people lost
their relevance in a truly multicultural Christian community.
The
inclusiveness and love evident in the early Christian church, though not
perfect, were so real and dramatic that some in the Roman world called the
Christians "the third race."
Women went from silence to teaching and leadership. Slaves became deacons and
bishops. Wealthy Christians willingly sold their property and shared it with
the poor.
The
marriage relationship changed radically. One-sided male rule converted to
mutual submission, the wife submitting to a husband who was commanded to model
Christ by loving her sacrificially, even to the point of death (Eph 5:21-33),
and mutual authority, husbands and wives having exactly the same authority over
their own and each other's bodies (1 Cor 7:3-5).
The
all-male priesthood gave way to the priesthood of all believers (male and
female) with Christ as the one High Priest. Evidence throughout the New
Testament shows that women were teachers and leaders in the early church.
Biased English translations obscure some
of this evidence. For example, Junia, commonly recognized as a female apostle,
was turned into a male by a fourteenth century commentator with no textual
warrant.6
Paul
commended numerous women as faithful coworkers, including Phoebe, described in
the Greek as a gospel minister and leader. Using the same Greek root, Paul told
leaders to govern diligently (Rom 12:8); yet one Bible paraphrase calls Phoebe
a dear Christian woman instead of a leader or governor! Paul called apostles and prophets the “foundation of the church” (Eph 2:20).
Ephesians 3:5 makes it clear that these are New Testament prophets. They taught with foundational authority, and
both groups included women. The apostle John sent one of his letters to a woman
in authority over a church that met in her home (2 Jn).
Two
controversial texts appear to prohibit women's teaching and authority in the
church (1 Cor 14:33-35 and 1 Tim 2:12). These texts have unfairly given Paul
the reputation of being a misogynist (woman hater). Problems riddle both texts.
The meanings of several critical Greek words are uncertain. Both texts are in
letters to churches struggling with specific problems concerning women. Both
churches included respected women teachers. Although Christians differ in their
understanding of these verses7 it is a serious mistake to use them
to exclude women from leadership, when so much clear New Testament evidence
points to the opposite conclusion.
You may be
surprised that what I am saying does not match the practice of much of the
church throughout history or even today. Too often Christians have fallen
captive to human traditions that conflict with the radical New Testament
message. We must constantly hold our traditions up to the light of the Bible
and allow it to reform our theology and lives.
Common Ground Between the Bible and Feminism
The common
ground between the Bible and feminism is that both recognize there is a problem
and believe we have a responsibility to do something about it. Elaine Storkey,
a Christian philosopher and sociologist, describes it by saying,
Men constitute a problem for women, not
as individuals necessarily, but as those who combine to impose certain
attitudes and values, to uphold certain interests in society. Pay
differentials, educational priorities, rape, domestic violence, pornography,
workloads in the home, leisure patterns, all produce their own evidence to
indicate the extent of the problem. For it is woven into the very structure of
contemporary society. 8
The
culprit behind all these injustices is what feminists call the patriarchal
system. It includes the powerful assumption that men are entitled to define
women and their place. Christian and non-Christian feminists share a sense of
responsibility to challenge these assumptions and injustices. Christians
recognize that ever since the Fall, sex-gender reality has included a
complicated mixture of good (creational) and bad (fallen) patterns. We strive
to restore relationships and institutions to God's good creation/redemption
plan of male-female equality, complementarity, interdependence and mutual
respect and enjoyment.
Politically,
Christians and feminists may find themselves working together in some
surprising alliances. Prolife Christians and members of Feminists for Life of
America9 both oppose prochoice feminists on the abortion issue.
Christians ally with radical feminists against the free-speech liberal feminist
position on pornography. Some Christians and feminists lobby together for
working conditions sympathetic to the needs of parents and children. Similar
partnerships are forming to fight rape, incest and domestic violence, inside
and outside the church.10
Incompatibilities Between Secular Feminism and
Christianity
No
overarching feminist worldview encompasses the diversity of feminist views of
human nature, the causes of women's oppression or the solutions to it. But
there are a number of basic non-negotiable biblical teachings essential to
Christianity. Three of them are particularly important to compare and contrast
with any strand of feminist thought: (1) human nature, (2) ultimate moral
authority and (3) the measure of human greatness or excellence.
1.
Human Nature - The Shared Image of God
The Bible
affirms a universal human nature that unites both sexes and all other
diversities (class, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, physical and
mental ability, and so on). Because all people are made in the image of God, no
group can be considered intrinsically superior to any other. The shared image
of God makes communication and love possible between people who may have little
else in common. While human differences are real and must be respected, our
most basic identity is grounded in the things that unite us.
Without a
grasp on the essential unity of the race, our differences tend to spawn
hostility, because all people are also fallen or sinful. No group can claim total innocence, nor can
any be blamed for all the evil in the world. But because God's grace extends to
all people, no group or individual is unredeemable. Within the basic unity of
the human race, the Bible affirms a good sexual diversity. Procreative
differences, for example, are good. True women's liberation does not mean
overcoming pregnancy and lactation, as some feminists have argued. And it is
counterproductive to deny (in the name of equality) the unique vulnerabilities
that come with childbearing.
Sex
differences are real and rooted in creation, but the Bible is surprisingly
silent about defining those differences. It never defines masculinity or
femininity and never exhorts men to be “manly” or women to be “womanly”. That
silence gives freedom for individuals and cultures to express the sex-gender
difference in many ways. In fact, the main emphasis in the Bible is on the
unity of the human race, and our call to the same character goals - the
imitation of Christ (love, humility, service, forgiveness, willingness to
suffer unjustly and courage) and the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control).
Some of
the most troubling trends in feminism today come from radical feminists who make too much of the
sex-gender difference, rather than from feminists who make too little of it.
Some radical feminists insist that males and females are morally and
ontologically two different kinds of beings. Men are evil oppressors; women are
innocent victims; all men are essentially rapists; and all men hate all women.
These things are simply not true. They express radical feminist ideology and
rhetoric. Reality is much more complex.
Black
feminists and other women of color have been some of the most powerful critics
of the radical feminist tendency to oversimplify moral reality. For example,
bell hooks (sic) describes many privileged white feminists as “so determined to create awareness of the
ways they were victimized within patriarchy that they could not accept any
analysis of their experience that was more complex, that showed the forms of
power they maintain even in the face of sexist exploitation - class and race
privilege.”11
The belief
in female goodness stands behind feminist separatism and the utopian hope often
placed in all-female communities and woman-centered culture. While we must
never minimize the horror of experiences like rape and domestic violence, that
often drive women to reject male society, the sad fact is that all-female
societies are plagued with the same attitudes of pride, dominance, greed and
self-centeredness that wreck any relationship or community. It is also a sad
fact that women who ascend to positions of power in society do not necessarily
advocate for or sacrifice for their less powerful sisters. No sex, race or
class is free from the sin that ruins relationships, exploits power or starts
wars.
The
Bible's teaching on sin, often rejected as overly pessimistic, actually leads
to hope. Where sin is our shared human problem, possibility for change exists.
People can repent, apologize, and be forgiven and reconciled to God and to each
other.
God's
forgiveness extends to the entire human race, male and female. Admitting guilt
and receiving forgiveness powerfully equalizes and humbles us. Once I admit my
need for forgiveness, it is much harder to justify the self-righteousness that
divides me from others, and interpersonal reconciliation becomes possible. Even
painful relationships between men and women can know real and substantial
healing.
2.
Ultimate Moral Authority
Next we
must ask: Who has the highest moral authority? If feminism requires autonomous
woman with no higher authority over her, able to determine true and false,
right and wrong, then there is a basic incompatibility with the Christian
faith.
It is
arrogant for any finite, mortal creature to claim the Creator's prerogatives. But
giving up God for the sake of moral freedom is also ultimate folly. Without God
we lose the moral authority needed to support the most fundamental values of
feminism - the belief in the equal value and dignity of all persons, male and
female.
Elaine Pagels
reflects on the radical nature of the Bible's teaching that all human beings
are equal image-bearers of God: The
Genesis accounts of creation introduced into Graeco-Roman culture many (new)
values...for example, the intrinsic worth of every human being, made in God's
image...Aristotle, among others, would have considered [these ideas]
absurd...The idea of human moral equality flourished among converts to
Christianity, many of whom, especially slaves and women, were anything but
equal under Roman law.12
These
ideas inspired The Declaration of Independence, the feminist crusade for the
inclusion of women with all the men who had been "created equal," and
the abolitionist movement for the inclusion of African-Americans. Most of us in
the West still take for granted the belief in human equality.
But as
Pagels has pointed out, it is important to understand that there is nothing
self-evident about this idea. It is dependent on belief in the Judeo-Christian
Creator. Therefore, when people stop believing in the God who created all human
beings in his image, they lose the necessary basis for the unique and equal
value of all persons.
Before
feminists reject God and his standards in favor of autonomous freedom for an
individual or a group, they should consider the possible implications of doing
that. For, if I have the right to be my own highest moral authority, how can I
deny that right to anyone else, including men? Yet men have repeatedly
victimized women in the practice of their autonomous freedom. And, if there is
no higher moral law that both men and women stand under, then women will always
be the most victimized.
Furthermore,
in a world without God, where impersonal nature is the final reality, why
shouldn't the one whom nature has endowed with greater strength use the weaker
to his advantage? This applies directly to men's abuse of women.
Without belief in God, how do we argue
with Honore de Balzac's view of the sexes? “Pay no attention to [woman's]
murmurs, her cries, her pains; nature has made her for our use and for bearing
everything: children, sorrows, blows and pains inflicted by man. Do not accuse
yourself of hardness. In all the codes of so-called civilized nations, man has
written the laws that ranged woman's destiny under this bloody epigraph: 'Vae
victus! Woe to the weak!”13
But if the
Bible's message is true, then men and women are not mere products of nature,
but children of God, and subject to God's laws - which, in fact, turn Balzac
upside down. According to biblical ethics, the person with more power has a
special responsibility to serve, care for and empower the less powerful.
As Western
culture has discarded belief in the Judeo-Christian God, we have lost the most
powerful philosophical-religious base for the feminist belief in the equal
value, dignity and rights of all persons, including women. Secularism cannot
produce an equivalent foundation. The biblical worldview provides a powerful
moral authority for denouncing sexism, racism and all injustice as wrong. Rape,
incest and violence against women are always wrong -not because feminists say
so, nor because a majority or the state says so, but because these things
violate God's character and laws.
More than
that, human outrage at injustice is not a freakish quirk in an impersonal and amoral
universe. Our sense of justice points to a God of justice, and at its best
reflects his justice, because we are made in his image. And there is the
promise that one day all will be made right by a just and merciful Creator.
Without such a hope, injustice is bound to have the final word.
3.
The Measure of Human Greatness
The rise
of First Wave Feminism in the second half of the nineteenth century represented
the revolt of women against a system that defined service and self-sacrifice as
uniquely feminine responsibilities. In an understandable reaction to the
injustice of that idea, some feminists have rejected the idea of service as a
worthy ideal for anyone. Instead, one's highest moral obligation is described
in individualistic, narcissistic language. My empowerment and self-fulfillment
matters most, no matter what the cost to anyone else.
If a
self-centered, individualistic definition of greatness or success is essential
to feminism, then it is incompatible with the Christian faith. For Christians,
Jesus is not only the Savior but also our Lord and the model of human
excellence for men and women. He redefined power and greatness in terms of
service (Mk 10:42-45).
The human
capacity and responsibility to love and empathize with others - as Jesus taught,
to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt 22:39) - is rooted in our
common humanity. No matter how diverse we are in terms of gender, race, class,
or anything else, we are still one as human beings. Therefore, we are capable
of the imaginative work of putting ourselves in each other's shoes.
So we are
to love our neighbors; we are to care for the vulnerable; we are to be
hospitable, a word that means “loving the stranger”. Why? Because God loved us
in our need. And because, no matter how
different the stranger is, we are still the same flesh and blood, and we both
stand ultimately in the same place. We are equally recipients of the undeserved
gift of life and equally vulnerable to death.
If I have
power, health and wealth today, I may lose them tomorrow. There is neither
condescension nor codependency in the Bible's ethic of power and service. It is
based on the reality that, ultimately, we are all in the same boat.
Loving and
serving others does not mean being weak or passive, or always deferring to those
in power. Jesus was no doormat! He confronted injustice and the abuse of power
wherever he saw it, which was mostly in the patriarchal religious/political
establishment. It takes courage and strength to live a life of service,
particularly where corrupt institutions need reform in order for human caring
and justice to take place.
Florence
Nightingale is a model for many feminist reformers in the nursing profession
today. Born in the nineteenth century into the British upper class, she did not
explicitly identify with the woman's rights movement, but her life and work
embodied a powerful feminist revolt against the Victorian definition of passive
womanhood, expressed in her famous words, "Why
have women passion, intellect, moral activity - these three - and a place in
society where no one of the three can be exercised?"14
She found
ways to exercise all three. Her sharp mind for facts, statistics,
documentation, and persuasion was bonded to her deep compassion for suffering
people and a dogged determination to bring reform. The only way for a woman in
her culture to make large-scale reforms was through influencing men with
political power. And she was remarkable at it! People in her day spoke with awe
of the Nightingale power. During her ninety years, she wrote over two hundred
books, reports and pamphlets and accomplished an amazing amount of reform in
nursing, public health, the army and poor houses - in England, India, the
United States and elsewhere.
In an
article called “Feminism and Nursing”, Peggy Chinn and Charlene Wheeler write:
“In her closing note in (Notes on
Nursing) Nightingale cautions her sisters against doing what men do merely
because men do it, and against doing what women do merely because it is
prescribed for them by society. She states,
"surely woman should bring the best she has, whatever that is, to the work
of God's world, without attending to either of these cries." 15
Sojourner
Truth is another model of human excellence.
Born into slavery, she came from a background radically different from
Florence Nightingale's. Yet, in their
common determination to serve God and humanity with all their strength, both
model powerful lives of Christian feminist heroism. The Victorian definition of
passive, leisured womanhood that Nightingale found unbearably constricting
actually disqualified Sojourner Truth from being a woman at all! In a public
address, Truth confronted the white cultural stereotype:
"That man over there, [who had said
women were the weaker sex], he says women need to be helped into carriages and
lifted over ditches and to have the best everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into
carriages, over mud puddles, or gets me any best places.” And raising herself
to her full height, she asked, "And ain't I a woman?"...
"Look at me!" She bared her right arm and raised it in the
air. The audience gasped as one voice. Her dark arm was muscular, made strong
by hard work. "I have ploughed. And I have planted. And I have gathered
into barns..." She paused again and asked this time in a whisper,
"And ain't I a woman?”
"I have borne children and seen them
sold into slavery, and when I cried out in a mother's grief, none heard me but
Jesus. And ain't I a woman?"16
Sojourner
Truth could not read, but she knew much of the Bible by heart. She was a
powerful preacher, public speaker and activist for the rights of blacks and
women. Over six feet tall, she bore herself in a way that commanded respect.
She was one of the first African-American women to win a court case. In fact
she won three, all against whites.
Both
Nightingale and Truth were well known in their lifetimes. But fame is not intrinsic to heroism. Many anonymous heroes risked their lives to
save Jews during the holocaust, for example. I believe we are drawn to and
inspired by these kind of people, because we intuitively recognize human
excellence - the excellence of God's image-bearers, reflecting the character of
their Maker.
Are Christianity and Feminism Compatible?
However
you decide to answer, I hope you are persuaded that there is a place for
fruitful dialogue. Modern feminism has challenged the church to reevaluate its
life and theology of sex and gender. Christians should be deeply thankful for
all the responsible biblical scholarship that has resulted, reaffirming that
the gospel Jesus brought to the poor, the prisoners, the blind and all who are
oppressed is indeed, good news for women.
Many have
experienced the church as bad news for women.
I would invite them to look beyond the failures of Jesus' followers and
examine his life and teachings for themselves.
If Jesus is who he claimed to be, then in him there are solutions, not
only to the legitimate problems raised by feminists, but to the even deeper
human dilemma - our alienation from our Creator.
Endnotes
1Leonard Swidler, “Jesus Was a
Feminist,” quoted in reprint by Christians for Biblical Equality (112 West
Franklin Ave, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451), p.1.
2Annie Gaylor,
"Feminist Salvation," The Humanist July/Aug. 1988, pp. 33-34.
3Vishal Mangalwadi, When
the New Age Gets Old, (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 133
4Francis A. Schaeffer,
Genesis in Space and Time in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer,
(Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1982),
2:65.
5Dorothy L. Sayers, Are
Women Human? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 47
6Eldon Jay Epp,
Junia: The First Woman Apostle
(Minneapolis MN.: Augsburg Fortress, 2005). Epp’s book is a meticulously
documented examination of the evidence for Junia (Romans 16:7) being both a
woman and an apostle. See also Aida Besancon Spencer, Beyond the Curse (New
York: Thomas Nelson, 1985) pp.100-102
7The leadership of L'Abri
Fellowship, the organization with which the author is associated, allows
differences of interpretation and application of these controversial verses
among themselves. The author has
expressed her views, which do not represent any official L'Abri position.
8Elaine Storkey, What's
Right with Feminism? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 162.
9For information about Feminists
for Life of America (FFLA), see their web site:
<feministsforlife.org>
10see
<godswordtowomen.org/pasch.htm> to learn about Peace and Safety in the
Christian Home (PASCH)
11bell hooks, Yearnings:
Race, Gender and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End Press, 1990), pp. 75-76.
12Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve
and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. xix-xx.
13Honore de Balzac, as
quoted by Rosemarie Tong in Feminist Thought: A Comprehensive Introduction
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989), p. 206.
14Quoted by Peggy L. Chinn
and Charlene Eldridge Wheeler in “Feminism and Nursing: Can Nursing Afford to
Remain Aloof from the Women's Movement?” Nursing Outlook 33, (March/April
1985): 77
15Ibid.
16Patricia C. McKissack and
Fredrick Mckissack, Sojourner Truth:
Ain’t I a Woman? (New York:
Scholastic, 1992), quoted from the back cover
+
Mardi
Keyes holds a B.A. in
biblical history from Wellesley College. In 1979 she and her husband Dick
helped start the Southborough (Massachusetts) branch of L'Abri Fellowship where
they continue to work. She has published numerous articles and contributed to
the book Women and the Future of the Family with Elizabeth Fox-Genovese,
Stanley J. Grenz, and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. She also lectures widely on gender
issues. A number of her lectures are available at www.labri-ideas-library.org
and from Sound Word Associates at www.soundword.com. The Keyes have three married sons and six
grandchildren.
+
Feminism
and the Bible 2013 Update © 2013 Mardi Keyes
Text
originally published as Feminism & the Bible by Mardi Keyes. Copyright ©
1995 Mardi Keyes. Used by permission of
the author.
First
Edition (1995) published by Intervarsity Press.
All
rights reserved. No part of this essay may be reproduced in any form (other
than short quotations for the sake of reviews or academic work) without written
permission from the author.
This
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Summer of 2013. This non-exclusive one time permission for ten copies, and
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the author to Shawn Birss.
All
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY
BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984 by
International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
All rights reserved.
For
information on the upcoming wide release of this book, the new publishing
collective, or to see other available titles go to pirate-pastor.blogspot.com.
To contact the publisher for a catalogue or other inquiries write to Shawn
Birss P.O. Box 52188 Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2T5, or email jesuspunks@gmail.com.
+
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