Gender Envy
I’ve read a lot of griping about gender inequality within Christianity lately. It smacks of either (1) men feeling like women are poor, beaten down persons incapable of fending for themselves … in need of a hero or (2) penis envy (used more for cultural conotation moreso than any female desire to be equipped with a penis).
I don’t really understand what’s so hard to wrestle with here. I mean, I can understand the difficulty in nailing down the particulars, but it seems like an awful lot of word space is being used up to debate whether or not there even is a worthwhile difference and order between genders within humanity as understood by Christianity.
It seems pretty clear to me: God sets up relations between Him and humanity and has expressed those in the terms of the same gender that humanity has as a source of difference in itself. Jesus is male, and Jesus had plenty of opportunity to establish women in authority – but He didn’t. But Jesus gave a lot of time to women in His teaching, so we shouldn’t for a second think that women are some kind of second class citizen. Just different jobs for different genders that make a whole humanity and image the nature of God and His order.
Why people can’t agree on that much baffles me.
Hi Spencer,
I was bored and followed the link on Jason’s blog. I put my maiden name in here because chances are you wouldn’t have recognized ‘lenfest’.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this entry and loop it back to a previous post wherein you described your TEC retreat experience.
In essence you stated that most of the talks you heard were from people who had very dramatic conversion stories and that part of you envied that in a way. I feel the ongoing “gender inequality” debate is fueled by a similar type of envy.
In the bible Jesus and his apostles are all males. And they’re out there every day doing the dramatic stuff. Traveling across the land at Jesus’ side converting people. The women are there but they have very steady, non-dramatic, humble lives. Nothing too remarkable. They’re just always there when they’re needed in a very quiet way to wash Jesus’s feet or wipe his face. Mary has the only starring role and if you’re not Catholic you never really hear about Mary at all except around Christmas time.
It’s not hard to see why some women feel as though they are forever in the shadows and long for a more active part in the leadership/direction of modern Christianity.
I *could* at this point spin off into a rant about how the feminist movement, while having positive and idealistic roots, has ultimately undermined society by making a life of humble servitude a source of shame for 51% of the population. But I think you can gleen from that summation what I might have said.
The greater point here is that, from an outside perspective, men have always had a more exciting and active life in the church. Many women see that and want that for themselves.
But would having that give glory to God?
Consider the life of the cloistered monk/nun. These people do not seperate themselves from society, take a vow of silence and live a life of constant prayer as a result of a lack of leadership skills or theological knowledge. They choose that life because in their heart they know that their choice gives great glory to God. In the same way, a women with leadership skills and theological knowledge is not any less valuable to the future of the church simply because she is not up on the alter wearing a collar. She simply has a different, though no less important role to play.
Women were given a tremendous gift on that second X chromosome. We were given the gift of humility and a heart that lends itself to service and nurturing. To shut away that part of a woman is a terrible tragedy.
Lest anyone be confused, men could also do with a heaping helping of humility. But in the interest of brevity and thematic uniformity I’ll leave that for another time.
~Angela
I don’t think we’re in any way disagreed. Now how do we get everyone else on board??