5.01.2007

women in christianity



i'd love to hear some thoughts about this video from you.

[ht to emerging women - originally from Jennifer]

4 comments:

Elizabeth Easterling said...

Julie,

Thank you. I wept. I am weeping. It is so hard to embrace the truth that I am a persecuted people in my own faith.

A story:

When I was 15 I told everyone that I was going to go to seminary. I wanted to be a theologian. I wanted to learn greek and hebrew more than anything in the world. For once, I wanted to read the bible for myself.

I also wanted to get my masters in Counseling. I wanted to go to a seminary because there I could do both.

In excitement I told my grandparents. They both looked concerned and said, "Now, Lizzie, you aren't going to get ordained are you? And be like those other women? What we really need is more men to step up to the plate, we women just emmasculate them with our curse of control".

How righteous it sounds. How devistating it is.

I still haven't taken greek and hebrew.

Anonymous said...

Wow - pretty heavy stuff. Thanks for posting it.

I was wondering about the context of some of these quotes, especially Luther's, since he was very affectionate towards Katharine and most of the stuff I've read on him seemed to portray her as his equal intellectually and in force of will.

Then I read the poster's comments on YouTube and she (I guess I'm simply assuming it's a woman - my chauvinism is showing) had this to say:

"In one sense, *all* of the quotes are without context. I wasnt trying to give a complete context of each persons full theology about women. I was showing my version of what its like to be affected by those comments."

And that definitely strikes home: whether or not misogyny is ingrained in Christianity, the greater part of the Church's speech about women is framed to rebuke or revile them.

Erin and I are both dealing with what a woman's place is in the church, and why. Are those NT restrictions cultural and not applicable now? Is it because of Eve tempting Adam? Is it a byproduct of the ancient Near Eastern struggles between patriarchal and matriarchal societies and their religious functions? Is it a portrait of the kingdom of heaven, with men playing God and women playing humanity? Or do we just do it because "God said so," according to my conservative pastor?

In a lot of ways I'm trying to counteract my upbringing of simply accepting that there are things women are allowed to do in the church and there are things they aren't. Why is this even a huge deal? Isn't there now no difference between male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile? You don't have many people asking, "What is a Gentile's place in the church?" these days.

I guess this is less a comment on your blog than a free-form ramble composed nearly entirely of questions. I'm interested in your thoughts - I'm sure you have about three dozen or so. . .

j.p. said...

dante -

as far as context, i believe context matters. but as you pointed out, there's not only the context of who said what and when, but the overall context of how women are viewed by the church and treated within the church (and of course, culture as a whole).

i have many, many thoughts on this whole issue, most of which i'm still in the process of forming, as this is something that has taken up more space in my heart and mind over the past few years. so i'll probably take some time to start posting on it soon.

but i did want to comment that the verse you referred to, Gal 3:28 (how men & women, slave & free, Jew & gentile are all the same in Christ), is a verse referring to our place as children (though the verse says "sons") of God, heirs of Abraham, through baptism. it's a verse talking about a salvific perspective, not one that refers to roles per se.

but, in reading the general whole of scripture, i will say that i have a hard time agreeing with the complementarian or patriarchal perspectives versus the egalitarian one.

but, i'll leave all that for a post later, instead of ranting now. ;)

student dr. blaze said...

people who "knew me back when" ask me why i no longer identify myself as a christian. do i need any more reason than what this video shows?

for all my attempts to find words for what's happening to women in the name of christianity, i cannot put it better than this clip did. except, perhaps, for adding my own tears....

thanks for sharing this one. it's profoundly important.

-k