Early Christian Feminists

Just as feminists began to question the roles of women in secular culture, Christian feminists began to question the roles of women within the church.  As I’ve read about these early discussions about church theology and polity, I find myself feeling tense.  I believe there is a fine line to walk between a correct and an incorrect interpretation of scripture on this matter.

Katherine Bliss, a prominent Christian feminist in the 1950s, argued that women could not exercise their tremendous spiritual gifts because they could not be church leaders.   She advocated for the reexamination of men’s and women’s roles within the church: “…we must begin to ask seriously what the will of God is concerning the diversity of gifts of men and women and concerning the spirit in which they are to serve together their common Lord.”  I’ll agree with her initial point – the church should examine this issue.  The church sets itself apart from a lot of secular thinking by holding a high view of women.  However, as I think Bliss’ aim was to redefine church polity to allow women to be ordained, I’ll disagree with her conclusions.  More on that later.

Bliss and others made valid points about the interpretation of scripture – many important and influential theologians worked during a time when society’s view of women was rather low.  Even Martin Luther, I’m sad to say, wrote this about women: 

“Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow breasts, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children.”

Ugh…  That’s awful.  I think it’s fair to point out that people reflect the thinking of their time.  We should be careful to interpret the teaching of even the most famous theologians through the lens of scripture.  Culture does not validate our beliefs; the Bible does. 

Feminists during this time did well to point out the high view of women held forth in scripture.  Kassian lists a few examples:  

“The example of Mary learning at the feet of Jesus; of Phoebe being sent out as an ambassador to the churches; of the five daughters of Philip who moved into prophetic ministry; of Priscilla, who instructed and disciple Apollos together with Aquila – all the passages that demonstrated God’s high regard for women – were presented as evidence of the essential equality of women.”  (Kassian 30)

I absolutely agree.  In one of my entries, I’ve already quote from Galatians 3:28, “In Christ there is neither male nor female.” 

I agree with one of the presuppositions of the Christian feminists at this time: women were being mistreated within Christian society as much as they were within secular society.  However, I do not believe that being denied the right to ordination is part of that mistreatment. 

Rosemary Lauer translated and expounded on the work of Gertrud Heinzelmann (excellent name).  Lauer articulated the goal for women by saying, “…woman’s soul does not differ from man’s and therefore can receive the sacramental character of ordination as well as his.”  I agree that men’s and women’s souls are the same, equal in God’s sight and valuable to our creator.  I disagree that the logical conclusion is that women should be ordained. 

I’ll use the principle of the Trinity to explain how I can accept the premise and reject the conclusion.  The Trinity is the Godhead.  It is made up of three persons – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – but is a single being – God.   These three persons have different functions.  The Father created the world, through the Son and in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The Son became a man, lived a perfect human life, died to fulfill the punishment for sin, and rose again to conquer death.  The Holy Spirit was sent to earth after Jesus’ ministry as a constant presence and Helper for Christians; He is the presence of God in our lives today. 

In the same way, men and women are equal in their creation, in their dignity, in their worth as human beings with souls that God wants to save from sin.  However, they are different in function.  That difference is reflected to some extent in physical design – e.g. women have the ability to bear children, men do not. 

We must look to scripture to determine what differences are ordained by God and what differences have been created by culture (which is a victim of the presence of sin). 

The passage I must use to address this is highly controversial.  I come back to that tension of wanting to interpret scripture correctly – stepping too far on either side is detrimental. 

1 Timothy 2:8-15 – Paul is writing to Timothy to help him pastor the church at Ephesus.   He gives some instruction for the way the church should conduct worship. 

8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; 9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. 11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

This passage is often criticized for its instruction to women to be submissive.  Lots of women I know hate that word.  Lots of men I know hate it too.  Do we like to submit to authority?  Any authority!  No, we question it, we criticize it, we dismiss it.  But this command is given directly to women in scripture.  This doesn’t happen often.  It cannot be ignored.

So what is Paul really saying here?  He is explicitly telling women not to teach.  What does that mean?  The interpretations that I trust say that this means women are not to be ordained ministers charged with the task of the public preaching of the gospel.  That task is reserved for men based on the principle of male headship (another buzzword).  That concept derives from the reference made here: Adam was created first.  Does it seem arbitrary?  Maybe.  But God could have created Adam and Eve in any order that He wanted to.  There must be a reason He did things in this particular order.  (Also, I’ve recently studied Genesis again – there was a good bit of time between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve.  Adam really looked through all the creatures while he was naming them before God said that there wasn’t a suitable helper.  The creation order is distinct.) 

So women shouldn’t be pastors.  That’s it.  That’s the only restriction put on women in ministry.  Go back to the litany of women in the New Testament (that list didn’t even touch the women in the OT who demonstrate strength, character, and a clear place in God’s plan).  They were taught, they were teachers, they discipled (even other men!), but they did not preach. 

I can understand that historically and culturally, women have been put in a box, told to sit in the corner and shut up.  That’s not what Paul is saying here.  He is saying that women have a single limitation on their ministry – ordination.  That limitation cannot be ignore because it is distasteful to some women.  God gives all kinds of commands that might seem to limit us, but they don’t.  Because scripture teaches that God wants what is best for us.  (Sound cheesy?)  God created us, loves us, sustains us, and gives us limitations because they benefit us. 

A small tangent to conclude my post today.  Valerie Saiving Goldstein wrote “The Human Situation – A Feminist Viewpoint.”  In it, she discussed how a person’s gender might affect his/her theology:  a man interprets scripture differently from a woman.  She cited two male theologians (Anders Nygren and Reinhold Niebuhr) who stated that men and women have different primary sins – man’s was pride, and woman’s was sacrificial love.  Goldstein believed sacrificial love was not a woman’s primary sin; rather, it was the “underdevelopment or negation of the self…triviality, distractibility, diffuseness, dependence on others for one’s own self-definition.”  So she believed that women had too much sacrificial love and not enough pride in themselves because they were always being defined by somebody else. 

I’ve heard several sermons on Genesis that indicate the opposite.  Eve’s sin was ambition; Adam’s sin in Genesis was abdication.  Adam stood by while Eve made the decision to eat the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat.  Eve desire the knowledge of good and evil that God had, supposedly, prevented them from having.  She was willing to disobey God in order to acquire it.  She should not have eaten; Adam should have stopped her.  I’ve continued to reflect on that idea – culturally, women are viewed as unfeminine if they are ambitious; it’s considered to be a fault.   Men are considered less masculine when they don’t “take charge” of a situation.  I think those cultural norms are shifting.  But if so much of our history has shown evidence of those tensions, I think there’s something to it. 

In conclusion, I agree with the early Christian feminists who wanted to challenge church culture alongside secular culture.  Have women often been relegated to the world of potlucks and nursery duty?  Yes.  But is the solution to that giving women permission to be ordained?  I don’t think so.  I think scripture is very clear on that issue. 

Happy Mother's Day

Last week I noted that Mary Kassian deals with Simone deBeauvoir, then moves on to Betty Freidan.  If I hadn’t gotten so hung up on deBeauvoir, I would have read ahead and realized that her comments on Freidan were similar.  I’ll address Friedan briefly.

Friedan agreed with deBeauvoir’s basic thesis that women have been assigned a second-class status in the world.  Friedan noted the tension between “the reality of women’s lives and the image to which women were trying to conform” (Kassian 20).  Friedan called this disparity the “feminine mystique.”  Women felt that they should have found fulfillment in their roles as wives and mothers because that’s what society told them would be satisfying.  Friedan believed that “self-fulfillment came from having a defined purpose and from shaping and contributing to the world in tangible and creative ways.”  Raising children, while important, did not feel like a major contribution to society.  Women weren’t participating in the development of ideas and culture.  Friedan wanted women to participate in academic and public arenas by taking an interest in a particular topic and pouring themselves into the study and development of that topic; she thought education was the way to go.  To compound the issue of women’s dissatisfaction, nobody seemed to be talking about it.  Women weren’t spending time together in public places talking about, let’s be honest – complaining about, their day-to-day lives.  So how could they have known that other women were feeling a similar discontent?  Women remained silent because of this “mystique,” this idea that women should have felt satisfied in their current lives.  Friedan believed that education and public participation were the solution to the feminine mystique.  Let women participate in a field of thought for an extensive period of time, let them contribute to the development of ideas and culture. 

This issue actually lends itself to a little Mother’s Day reflection.  I believe my interpretation from last week stands: Friedan is identifying an issue of purposelessness.  Christians have a very clear purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  In addition to that, humanity has been given the command, starting with Adam and Eve, to be fruitful and multiply.  Well, after that multiplication takes place, someone has to care for the product.  

Here’s what I want mother’s to remember today: women raising children are shaping culture in a radical way.  (This applies to any parent, but in honor of the day and the topic of the blog, I’m going to talk about mothers.)  The way a mother raises her child does more to create the future of our world than any scientific breakthrough or political movement can.  Every day, I see the results of a lack of parenting: students who don’t know how to cope when they face difficult situations, students who don’t know what to believe in this world, students who don’t know their own worth and potential.  Mothers are commanded to raise their children according to the teaching of the Bible.  They are to tell their children of the mighty works that God has done in order to foster a relationship between God and the child.  This is the most important thing a mother can do, and likely the prayer of all Christian mothers – Lord, let my child walk with you. 

Of course, I can say all of this without being a mother yet; I don’t know how difficult it is to give up my profession and autonomy to live for the whims of a three-year-old.  (Thanks to my friends, I’ve gotten a glimpse of what life is like among young children, and I complain a little less about my students J)  I know from talking to other women that transitioning out of a professional life into a life at home is difficult; women struggle to find fulfillment in changing diapers and wiping noses.  I think Friedan was right to acknowledge a tension there: it’s easy to say that being a mother is fulfilling, but it’s another thing entirely to spend your day at home with children and feel fulfilled at the end of it.  That is my prayer for all the mothers I know: may you be reminded of the tremendous blessing it is to have the gift of raising your children, even on the days when it offers you absolutely no intellectual stimulation.  You are living in obedience to God and participating in the calling He has placed on your life.  May the Lord bless you in that work. 

Mom pointed me towards this article:  “Millennial moms put their unique imprint on parenting.”  In some ways, this generation of moms is doing what deBeauvoir and Friedan would have wanted – they are creating a community of women that can communicate about their purpose and identity.  Technology is a blessing in this way – it connects women who would otherwise be stuck at home all day without any adult interaction. 

I’m glad that being a stay-at-home mom is regaining some “legitimacy” in society.  I hope to become a part of that profession someday. 

At the end of Kassian’s introductory chapter focusing on these two feminist thinkers, she adds this rather important point.  She moves on to another feminist thinker, Kate Millett, who defined the problem that women had been facing as “patriarchy.”  Adrienne Rich explained:  “Patriarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men – by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labor – determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male” (Kassian 23-24).  This was the overall culture that kept women from transcending, from discovering their purpose and identity. 

This concept of patriarchy will launch me into an examination of male headship.  Kassian’s next chapter examines the problem among women in the church.  It’s a similar problem to what these feminist thinkers identified, and it emerged around the same time – women were not being permitted to exercise their giftedness in a church congregation.  They could take care of potlucks and the nursery, but couldn’t teach or rule within the congregation.  This is a touchy subject.  And one that I want to tackle with lots of thought and discernment.  I’ll study during this coming week and share my thoughts with you next Sunday. 

Simone deBeauvoir

Indulge me for a moment.  I would like to thank all my fans ;)  Your emails, comments, and conversations have only increased my enthusiasm for this study.  I have looked forward to this afternoon of study and writing, knowing that I’ve reserved the Sabbath for this venture, as a way to set the day apart. 

As I have talked with many of you, I have been overwhelmed at the number of directions this blog could take.  There are so many resources that could help me in this study.  For the sake of my sanity, I will focus on Mary Kassian’s The Feminist Gospel.  However, I will build a reading list of books and articles, so feel free to comment or send me an email with suggestions. 

I have realized, even in sitting down this afternoon to write this post, that I am truly engaging in an academic study.  I have spent lots of time just fact-checking before I put these ideas into writing.  I ask you all to be gracious as I write.  If I make a mistake or misunderstand something, please correct me, but do so kindly.    

All that being said, here’s my first academic post.

Kassian began with a quick overview of the first wave of feminism.  I got excited because she mentioned Olympe de Gouges’ “Declaration of the Rights of Women” (a response to the French Revolution’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”).  I study this declaration with my students when we read A Doll’s House (Ibsen).  So I guess I’ve done a micro-study of feminism.  Huzzah!  Actually, A Doll’s House has come up quite a bit in my first section of study.  If you haven’t read it, you should.  It’s short, it’s engaging, it offers a plethora of pet names for your significant other, and it’s pretty good fodder for debate. 

Kassian moves quickly into an overview of the second wave of feminism.  This is where she settles for a time.  She focuses first on Simone deBeauvoir, then on Betty Friedan.  So far, I have read what she has to say about deBeauvoir.    

DeBeauvoir’s book The Second Sex (1949) is grounded in existentialism, which assumes that the world is uncertain and purposeless.  Any man or woman seeking to understand himself/herself in an existential world must create meaning. 

Christians have a different presupposition.  Christians believe that the world and human existence do have a purpose.  “Good little Christians” memorize this question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism at a young age.  Hopefully it becomes more than just a canned answer as they grow older and develop their worldview:

                         Q: What is the chief end of man?

                         A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Christianity believes that God built a purpose into men and women in his design.  Men and women are built to worship.  In the perfect creation, they worshiped God perfectly.  That gets complicated by our fallen world.  However, the purpose already exists.  Men and women just have to seek after it.    

DeBeauvoir’s thesis, as state by Kassian, is that “women as a group were assigned to second-class status in the world.  Woman was ‘defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her.’”  I think it would be hard to look at the history of the world and argue with that premise.  Women have been, and still are in some places, considered the weaker and lesser sex.  I spend a lot of time talking with my students about the ways women are treated in cultures around the world.  Is this what God intended?

Genesis tells us that man was created first and that woman was created out of man.  Man and woman are both made in God’s image.  They are equal in dignity.  They are set apart from all of the other animals on this earth (no suitable helper was found for Adam from among the animals).  They have been given dominion over the earth.  Nowhere in this creation set-up did God say that women would only be defined as wives and mothers. 

So why doesn’t the world function the way God designed it?  Why do men and women not experience equality?  Sin.  When sin entered the world, the relationship between men and women was severely affected.  This is where the inequality comes from. 

So Christians and feminists can agree that inequality between men and women is a problem.   What is the solution?

DeBeauvoir said that women were put into a mold that she called “the eternal feminism,” which caused women to be “frivolous, infantile, irresponsible, and submissive.”  She says that culture essentially created female to be a second-class citizen: to live up to lower expectations than men in terms of duty and consciousness, and so to function as lower citizens.  This is terrible!  But it’s happened.

Reading this turned on my English teacher brain.  A Doll’s House is Ibsen’s examination of the institution of marriage.  The early feminist movement in Europe heralded him as a champion, though he denied having that purpose in mind when he wrote.  His protagonist, Nora, is called “skylark” and “squirrel” by her husband, Torvald, who considers himself to be a role model for his wife in everything – even in teaching her how to dance.  Torvald expects his wife to be a loving mother, to spend his money wisely (though he constantly pokes fun at her for this, her weakness), to oversee the affairs of the house, and to not embarrass him in public.  When Nora asserts that she must learn what it means to be a woman, that she can no longer go on being his “doll wife,” he is taken aback.  Hasn’t he loved her diligently?  Well, the best way he knew how.  But she has only been defined in her life as a daughter, then wife, then mother – all terms that name a woman in relationship to someone else.  She has never been simply a “woman.” 

I appreciate Ibsen’s and DeBeauvoir’s advocacy for women in this sense.  Women should know what it means to be a person.  DeBeauvoir states that the dilemma for women is that they have no autonomy, and therefore, have no ability to transcend their existence and consciousness, which is imposed on them by men.  She goes on to state that women must take full responsibility for enacting this change, but notes that it was difficult for them to do so because they lived their lives in isolation from other women.  She pointed to community among women as a powerful tool in helping women break out of their “imprisonment.”

Scripture has a different solution.  As I said before, sin is the problem.  Sin impedes men and women from functioning according to God’s original design.  What is the solution to sin?  Christ.  Galatians 3 addresses this very issue:

“²⁶You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  ²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Faith in Christ gives us freedom.  It frees us from old social boundaries.  In the past, Jews were the chosen people, now salvation is extended to anyone who has faith in Christ.  There is not distinction between men and women when it comes to our salvation.  We are still equal in dignity and identity in Christ.  We will all inherit the promises God made to his people generations ago.  We will inherit eternal life with God in heaven. 

In one sense, this is transcendence.  Freedom in Christ allows us to transcend our old, sinful natures and put on the nature of Christ.  This creates purpose and identity.  Isn’t that what deBeauvoir wanted for women?  The difference is that this identity is still attached to a relationship: a relationship with Christ.  Through Christ, I am a Daughter of the King, I am part of Christ’s bride – the church, and I am a spiritual mother to the next generation of Christians.  I fully accept these roles.  As an autonomous, intelligent woman, I want to derive my identity from my relationship with God. 

Both the feminist and the Biblical woman want identity and purpose.  The Christian woman just has a clearer answer of what that purpose in life will be.