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How churches treat women is indicative of their commitment to or aversion to hierarchy and power
My mom never second-guessed the expectation that she would be a housewife. She thrived in that role and seemed to love every minute of it. She raised three happy, quirky kids, kept an immaculate home and chaired every not-for-profit in our hometown. She was elegant, a lovely hostess and a gentle, encouraging parent. And after divorcing my abusive father, she blossomed even more. She was a sight to behold.
You are not surprised to know my church has a men’s book club. But you may be surprised to learn that we are reading Beth Barr’s poorly-titled The Making of Biblical Womanhood (it should be The Reclaiming of Biblical Womanhood). Dr. Barr is a professor of church history and an evangelical feminist. She convincingly explains how modern Christian roles for wives and women are much more influenced by social custom than Biblical truth.
Her kind of illuminated hindsight provides needed clarity in our world of trad wives, unbalanced wages, father-daughter purity culture, male-dominated church leadership and “slut-shaming”.
Yes, you can constrain the role of women in your churches, businesses and families by cherry-picking some highly contextual and hastily interpreted Biblical passages, especially if your agenda is a patriarchal one. But the bigger picture is much more revealing.
Who were the examples of faithfulness and courage in the gospels? Who were given titles of deacon, apostle, prophet and church hostess in the epistles? Who was included in the revolutionary statements “…there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” and “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ”? Not to mention how the early church was a gender oasis within phallocentric Roman elitism.
Post-reformation patriarchy was undeniable. Women could not own land, inherit estates, hold upper-level jobs, run for office or even have their own bank accounts. I can’t help but recall Paul’s warning that “…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world…” These authorities and powers, like Roman empires, a cross-wearing patriarchy and even some modern political ideologies are based on some people being better than others. That’s how power works. Which would explain, for example, why the Song of Solomon is typically interpreted as a theological allegory: because a literal collection of songs about having a lifelong, sexy marriage has a woman as the passionate protagonist. A patriarchal system cannot accommodate that kind of woman.
The women in your experience may love their traditional, domestic and complementarian roles at home and church. That’s wonderful. But to apply those boundaries on every woman is an affront to God’s choice to freely distribute the gifts of his Holy Spirit to whomever he chooses.