When I think of an heiress, I think of a lost and confused, spoiled, blonde woman. The tabloids follow her from one debauched scenario to the next, always supplementing the text with pinup-style pictures. Her trust fund holds her in an infantile state. It's not surprising God doesn't call his female children heiresses, but he does call them heirs--which in its Biblical context is actually far more surprising.
Why does he call us heirs? Because first, and even more surprisingly, he calls us sons. While I'm in favor of translating "man" in a gender neutral way when the Bible is using it to mean "mankind," I think gender neutral translations can do readers a big dis-service if they confuse gender on other points. When Paul's female, Jewish listeners heard that God had made them sons and heirs, they would have known exactly what the Psalmist meant when he said "God is the lifter of my head." To be a woman was at the very least an unenviable position, but to be a son meant honor and receiving the delight of the father. Sons got more education, had more power in society, and maintained a closer connection to their parents--often living with them. They were valuable.
Not long ago I spent two years in Abu Dhabi teaching English to Arabs who were one generation removed from Bedouin tribesman and who were still living out Old Testament social contracts. Marriages consisted of a father and future son-in-law negotiating a contract; the woman didn't even have to be present. That contract integrated the woman into the wider household of her father-in-law, where she would be obligated to obey almost everyone besides the girl children and sisters-in-law. While my female students entered the classroom timidly, covered head to toe in black, my male students strutted in like the world belonged to them, as--in a way--it did. Men ate together, served by women; they took and divorced wives with relative ease; they kept multiple wives if it pleased them; and they seemed to feel no twinge of conscience over trips to visit the prostitutes of Europe. Women were made for use and misuse by men.
The female, Roman converts to Christianity might have taken Paul's words in stride. Roman women were valued, could inherit, and retained allegiance to father over husband; but the Jewish listeners, like my Emirati students, would have found very surprising the assertion that women were entitled to the rights of sonship. When Paul says, "All who are being led by the Spirit of God, . . . are sons of God (NASV Rom 8:14)," he is operating from the culture-undermining assumption that God interfaces with his female children in exactly the same way as he connects with his male ones. Not only does God love his male and female children to the same degree (many fathers in patriarchal structures love their daughters), but Peter notes specifically that women are co-heirs with men "of the grace of life (NASV IPet 3:7)." God acts out his love on both men and women by connecting them to the inheritance.
So what do we men and women inherit? Or because of the lavishness of God, perhaps we should ask, what don't we inherit? The human, blonde-bombshell heiresses inherits almost nothing compared to what we are offered. Through our adoption as sons, God connects us to himself and to his human family descended from Abraham. Then he shares with us his divine nature through the spirit he puts in us, and we become his representatives in public. We have his name, speak "as though speaking the very words of God," and return to his household when this fleeting period of "daylight" (our present lives) is over. Our spiritual decent from Abraham also entitles us to inherit what was promised to Abraham: relationship with God and, ultimately, inheriting the whole world (Rom 4:13). Paul even goes so far as to say we will rule angels. Feeling pretty powerful now?
Maybe it's time to note that God isn't going to let all this amazing goodness poured out on us turn us into the infantile weaklings that trust fund money sometimes produces. Oh, yes we are heirs and will be glorified alongside our big brother, Jesus, "if indeed we suffer with Him (NASV Rom 8:17)." While God doesn't bring this suffering on us, our own broken world brings it, and he uses it to build perseverance and character; so we are asked to rejoice in it. After all, God is giving us everything we could ever want, including that we become the kind of people we've always wished we were.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Letter to my Nephew
Dear Nephew,
Today at your seventeenth birthday party, you heard me claim--in the face of the family stereotypes--that I am a feminist. I know the Rush Limbaugh fans may have taught you feminism means a certain set of things, but I'm ready to start the long project of proclaiming that, by the power of Jesus, it can mean something completely different.
Historically, feminism just meant the belief that men and women should have equal rights. I imagine that by this definition you yourself may be a feminist in all areas except church. That seems to be the de facto position of most conservative evangelicals I've met, and the position of most of the family members around you. Women may run the country but not preach in church.
I'm guessing that, being young and interested in other things, you haven't noticed the soft misogyny that pervades so many Christian environments. It's okay that you haven't thought much about it yet, but if you decide to ever meaningfully enter the life of a churched woman, you need to know and notice the steady barrage of discouragement she has received. Or, to put it more strongly, you need to recognize that church is the place where she is most excluded from opportunity.
To enter an environment and see it from the eyes of another person is always hard, but I challenge you to try. What does it feel like to know that no matter how much of your life you pour out to serve the church, you will never be asked to be a deacon, let alone an elder? What does it do to a person to be encouraged to model herself only after godly women of the Bible and not the godly men? (The purpose of the Bible is not that we use it as book of good examples, but it often gets used that way, nonetheless.) What does it feel like for a woman who teaches men in the "real world," to only be allowed to teach women and children in the church? What does it feel like for her to attend a Sunday School taught by a man or listen to a male pastor who is a far worse teacher than she herself?
Or let's think about the things she has been taught. How would it feel to hear the story of the fall interpreted in such a way that men seem to be the good-guys and women the bad-guys? Or what would it feel like to be told that marriage is about always being the second partner--the submitter. Would you want to get married? Thankfully in this day and age she can pick her own husband/boss, but she would be signing up for a lifetime of inequality. Would you be interested in doing that?
While it is hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes, it is even harder to try and want a change for that person. After all, the system presently favors you as a male. If you like, you can grow up to be a deacon, elder, or pastor without any competition from the female half of the church. You can find a woman and expect her to sign on to being your lifelong cleaning woman, cook, child-care provider, and obedient helper. (Thankfully, women willing to sign on to this are becoming fewer and fewer, but they are still out there.) Why would you want to upset such an easy deal?
Humanly speaking, there are a few reasons: for one, it is much more interesting to be married to an equal partner. But the deeper reason has to do with being the kind of person that looks like Jesus. In the way the church treats women, it has often stopped looking like Jesus, but that doesn't mean you have to follow suit. You can be a Jesus-like man, whether the church is doing a good job of that or not.
So what was Jesus' vision for his women, and how can you as a man get on board with that? The Bible gives us three very interesting titles for people in the church and, by extension, women in the church. They are called co-heirs with Christ, a royal priesthood, and receivers of a spirit of sonship by which they cry out to God as "Abba Father." In the Old Testament, the sign of the covenant only fell on men. They were circumcised. But in the New Testament the sign falls on both men and women in baptism. In the Old Testament the priesthood fell only on men, but now we are a nation of priests, both men and women. In ancient near eastern thinking only sons could be heirs, but now women have been called sons and co-heirs with Christ. So clearly Jesus vision for women in very similar to to his vision for men. He wants them to go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples, and baptizing.
I hope that as you begin to build deeper and deeper relationships with the ladies in your youth group and Christian school, you will have the same vision for them as Christ has. That you will not imagine them as providers of your personal needs, but as workers in God's kingdom. Perhaps the day will come when you discover that your work in God's kingdom fits well alongside the work of one of Christ's women workers. If that happens, I look to you to be equally yoked with her--not planning to rule over her in any way. For men and women best fulfill the work of God when they are side by side looking at Jesus, not busy holding one another to a man-made set of roles.
Love,
Your aunt
Today at your seventeenth birthday party, you heard me claim--in the face of the family stereotypes--that I am a feminist. I know the Rush Limbaugh fans may have taught you feminism means a certain set of things, but I'm ready to start the long project of proclaiming that, by the power of Jesus, it can mean something completely different.
Historically, feminism just meant the belief that men and women should have equal rights. I imagine that by this definition you yourself may be a feminist in all areas except church. That seems to be the de facto position of most conservative evangelicals I've met, and the position of most of the family members around you. Women may run the country but not preach in church.
I'm guessing that, being young and interested in other things, you haven't noticed the soft misogyny that pervades so many Christian environments. It's okay that you haven't thought much about it yet, but if you decide to ever meaningfully enter the life of a churched woman, you need to know and notice the steady barrage of discouragement she has received. Or, to put it more strongly, you need to recognize that church is the place where she is most excluded from opportunity.
To enter an environment and see it from the eyes of another person is always hard, but I challenge you to try. What does it feel like to know that no matter how much of your life you pour out to serve the church, you will never be asked to be a deacon, let alone an elder? What does it do to a person to be encouraged to model herself only after godly women of the Bible and not the godly men? (The purpose of the Bible is not that we use it as book of good examples, but it often gets used that way, nonetheless.) What does it feel like for a woman who teaches men in the "real world," to only be allowed to teach women and children in the church? What does it feel like for her to attend a Sunday School taught by a man or listen to a male pastor who is a far worse teacher than she herself?
Or let's think about the things she has been taught. How would it feel to hear the story of the fall interpreted in such a way that men seem to be the good-guys and women the bad-guys? Or what would it feel like to be told that marriage is about always being the second partner--the submitter. Would you want to get married? Thankfully in this day and age she can pick her own husband/boss, but she would be signing up for a lifetime of inequality. Would you be interested in doing that?
While it is hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes, it is even harder to try and want a change for that person. After all, the system presently favors you as a male. If you like, you can grow up to be a deacon, elder, or pastor without any competition from the female half of the church. You can find a woman and expect her to sign on to being your lifelong cleaning woman, cook, child-care provider, and obedient helper. (Thankfully, women willing to sign on to this are becoming fewer and fewer, but they are still out there.) Why would you want to upset such an easy deal?
Humanly speaking, there are a few reasons: for one, it is much more interesting to be married to an equal partner. But the deeper reason has to do with being the kind of person that looks like Jesus. In the way the church treats women, it has often stopped looking like Jesus, but that doesn't mean you have to follow suit. You can be a Jesus-like man, whether the church is doing a good job of that or not.
So what was Jesus' vision for his women, and how can you as a man get on board with that? The Bible gives us three very interesting titles for people in the church and, by extension, women in the church. They are called co-heirs with Christ, a royal priesthood, and receivers of a spirit of sonship by which they cry out to God as "Abba Father." In the Old Testament, the sign of the covenant only fell on men. They were circumcised. But in the New Testament the sign falls on both men and women in baptism. In the Old Testament the priesthood fell only on men, but now we are a nation of priests, both men and women. In ancient near eastern thinking only sons could be heirs, but now women have been called sons and co-heirs with Christ. So clearly Jesus vision for women in very similar to to his vision for men. He wants them to go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples, and baptizing.
I hope that as you begin to build deeper and deeper relationships with the ladies in your youth group and Christian school, you will have the same vision for them as Christ has. That you will not imagine them as providers of your personal needs, but as workers in God's kingdom. Perhaps the day will come when you discover that your work in God's kingdom fits well alongside the work of one of Christ's women workers. If that happens, I look to you to be equally yoked with her--not planning to rule over her in any way. For men and women best fulfill the work of God when they are side by side looking at Jesus, not busy holding one another to a man-made set of roles.
Love,
Your aunt
Thursday, March 20, 2014
I Tipped My Hand
Today I tipped my hand. With one slip of the tongue, I found myself letting my "complementarian" pastor know that I was outside the box of his denomination. I'm leaving in four months or so to follow my Air Force husband out of the country; I've already abdicated any leadership position in the women's ministry arm; and I'm no immediate risk. So I guess my timing could have been worse.
He and I are friends in the sense that we have had private and not-so-private conversations, but not in the sense that we understand one another in any profound way. In this particular meeting I wanted to nail down one thing: "Which pieces of the service could a lay person do?" --Okay, maybe nail down two things, the other being, "How soon can we let some people besides the pastor up to the front of the church?" His answer surprised me. He explained that in the interest of being collaborative he was trying to postpone decision making about certain aspects of the service until he had an elder board in place. Then, together, they would decide some of these issues. As soon as the presbytery approved his selection of elders, the delay would cease.
I honor what part of that was honorable: namely his desire to not run the show--though that meant that for all practical purposes he was running the show in the meantime. But something in the way he explained caused my stumble. He said, "I want to get an elder board in place to represent the congregation." Knowing that our denomination doesn't allow female elders, I shot back (without thinking) ". . .at least half of the congregation." He looked at me with confusion. I clarified: "The elder board will represent half the congregation." He remained befuddled. "They will represent the male half of the congregation." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Oh, the gender issue," he said. He then went on to explain that in his twelve plus years of pastoring, he had found that women were amply represented by their communications with the elders through the elders' wives.
Now, I know I drove him into a corner he wasn't expecting to be driven into on that particular morning, but his gut-level response didn't serve him very well. How exactly do you honor women as co-heirs, when they are given manipulation-of-the-elders-through-their-wives as the primary means of having influence in the body of Christ? And what strange office is this of elder's wife? Must one show some kind of aptitude or training to obtain it? Perhaps I should have offered to step into the position. Or, as one of my friends suggested, perhaps we need a women's meeting to precede the elders' meeting. Then the women could systematically address their concerns with the elders' wives. Who could formally present those concerns to the elders.
At any rate, however that little church plant sorts it all out after I'm gone, I tell this story as an example of the kind of thoughtlessness regular old soft misogyny engenders. Perfectly decent folks end up saying things to others, that they themselves would never continence if directed back at them. The law of love breaks down, and the more powerful lord it over the less powerful--in exact contradiction of Christ's call.
I'm struggling to extend grace back into this kind of environment, but I must find a way to do so because I do not want to respond in kind. Jesus calls me to a kingdom that is made up neither of men lording it over women nor women over men. Quite frankly, I don't have the personal power to walk this razor's edge between not allowing anyone to despise me because I am a woman and not in anyway degrading the despisers. This kind of supernatural discernment must come from the One who loves women more than their (too often male) pastors love them, and who loves the women's pastors more than the women are able to love them. Together men and women of Christ must both keep their eyes on Jesus, or these rough storm waves will sink both sets of us.
He and I are friends in the sense that we have had private and not-so-private conversations, but not in the sense that we understand one another in any profound way. In this particular meeting I wanted to nail down one thing: "Which pieces of the service could a lay person do?" --Okay, maybe nail down two things, the other being, "How soon can we let some people besides the pastor up to the front of the church?" His answer surprised me. He explained that in the interest of being collaborative he was trying to postpone decision making about certain aspects of the service until he had an elder board in place. Then, together, they would decide some of these issues. As soon as the presbytery approved his selection of elders, the delay would cease.
I honor what part of that was honorable: namely his desire to not run the show--though that meant that for all practical purposes he was running the show in the meantime. But something in the way he explained caused my stumble. He said, "I want to get an elder board in place to represent the congregation." Knowing that our denomination doesn't allow female elders, I shot back (without thinking) ". . .at least half of the congregation." He looked at me with confusion. I clarified: "The elder board will represent half the congregation." He remained befuddled. "They will represent the male half of the congregation." He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "Oh, the gender issue," he said. He then went on to explain that in his twelve plus years of pastoring, he had found that women were amply represented by their communications with the elders through the elders' wives.
Now, I know I drove him into a corner he wasn't expecting to be driven into on that particular morning, but his gut-level response didn't serve him very well. How exactly do you honor women as co-heirs, when they are given manipulation-of-the-elders-through-their-wives as the primary means of having influence in the body of Christ? And what strange office is this of elder's wife? Must one show some kind of aptitude or training to obtain it? Perhaps I should have offered to step into the position. Or, as one of my friends suggested, perhaps we need a women's meeting to precede the elders' meeting. Then the women could systematically address their concerns with the elders' wives. Who could formally present those concerns to the elders.
At any rate, however that little church plant sorts it all out after I'm gone, I tell this story as an example of the kind of thoughtlessness regular old soft misogyny engenders. Perfectly decent folks end up saying things to others, that they themselves would never continence if directed back at them. The law of love breaks down, and the more powerful lord it over the less powerful--in exact contradiction of Christ's call.
I'm struggling to extend grace back into this kind of environment, but I must find a way to do so because I do not want to respond in kind. Jesus calls me to a kingdom that is made up neither of men lording it over women nor women over men. Quite frankly, I don't have the personal power to walk this razor's edge between not allowing anyone to despise me because I am a woman and not in anyway degrading the despisers. This kind of supernatural discernment must come from the One who loves women more than their (too often male) pastors love them, and who loves the women's pastors more than the women are able to love them. Together men and women of Christ must both keep their eyes on Jesus, or these rough storm waves will sink both sets of us.
Friday, March 14, 2014
New Eyes
I'm surprised at all the times it didn't start--this clear sense that God Almighty, maker of the universe, wanted his women in more than just a supporting roll. It didn't happen when I watched my friends marry pastors instead of being pastors. It didn't happen when I moved to the US at 18 and realized that "home churches" were often more conservative about women than "mission field" churches were. It didn't even happen when my own set of God-given gifts didn't fit any of the gifts my church imagined for women. Instead, It happened years later, when I heard the pastor of my little PCA plant-church say that he would not allow women to be ushers "at this time."
I know he was trying to hold off on structural decisions until he got his all-male eldership in place; but maintaining the status quo is, in itself, a kind of decision--a precedence-setter. I knew something was wrong. So, I did what I have always done in times of confusion and pain: I went to the Bible and its author. For months I poured over my Greek Interlinear Bible, cried over misogynistic commentaries, talked to God, read about ancient near Eastern culture, and cringed over learned men speaking demeaningly of women without even recognizing they were doing it.
Slowly, like that weird car paint that looks completely different depending on the light, I found my understanding changing from what I had always simply imbibed to what I saw must be true: Women should only ever be on exactly the same footing as men in the church. God didn't even categorize his earthly children; he called them all sons and co-heirs with Christ. This must have been quite a promotion for those ancient women to become sons of God. (I thank the translators of gender-free Bibles to not sully this.) God wanted me in his project, all the way. No abdicating on anything just because I was a woman.
I have very little idea what it will look like for me as a woman to transition into actively being a priest in the priesthood of believers, a son among sons, a respondent to the great commission (Go preach, disciple, baptize!) My church has never called me, as a female, to these things. And who will guide me?
So far, I have uncovered only what I am not:
--I am not someone who in any way wants to damage the actual body of Christ on earth.
--I am not someone who believes that having a woman in the pulpit is in anyway related to having a practicing gay person in the pulpit.
--I am not suddenly a Democrat. I know it seems absurd to even mention politics in this context, but so many people have Democrat in the same pigeon hole as women preachers.
--I am not someone who has abandoned her conviction that the Bible is the unique word of God in the world, to be treasured, believed, and followed with all the regular, orthodox caveats, like "using context."
--I am not someone who has stepped away from Christ, but someone who has found herself feeling as though she were cheered on by him.
--I am not someone who thinks men are the problem. I think men and women are together hostages to ideas they inherited. (Men may in some cases have a greater vested interest in propagating the ideas, however.)
--I am not someone who wants women to aim to be like men in ministry. I want to see Jesus shining out through his women with the same level of influence with which he is shining through his men.
I know he was trying to hold off on structural decisions until he got his all-male eldership in place; but maintaining the status quo is, in itself, a kind of decision--a precedence-setter. I knew something was wrong. So, I did what I have always done in times of confusion and pain: I went to the Bible and its author. For months I poured over my Greek Interlinear Bible, cried over misogynistic commentaries, talked to God, read about ancient near Eastern culture, and cringed over learned men speaking demeaningly of women without even recognizing they were doing it.
Slowly, like that weird car paint that looks completely different depending on the light, I found my understanding changing from what I had always simply imbibed to what I saw must be true: Women should only ever be on exactly the same footing as men in the church. God didn't even categorize his earthly children; he called them all sons and co-heirs with Christ. This must have been quite a promotion for those ancient women to become sons of God. (I thank the translators of gender-free Bibles to not sully this.) God wanted me in his project, all the way. No abdicating on anything just because I was a woman.
I have very little idea what it will look like for me as a woman to transition into actively being a priest in the priesthood of believers, a son among sons, a respondent to the great commission (Go preach, disciple, baptize!) My church has never called me, as a female, to these things. And who will guide me?
So far, I have uncovered only what I am not:
--I am not someone who in any way wants to damage the actual body of Christ on earth.
--I am not someone who believes that having a woman in the pulpit is in anyway related to having a practicing gay person in the pulpit.
--I am not suddenly a Democrat. I know it seems absurd to even mention politics in this context, but so many people have Democrat in the same pigeon hole as women preachers.
--I am not someone who has abandoned her conviction that the Bible is the unique word of God in the world, to be treasured, believed, and followed with all the regular, orthodox caveats, like "using context."
--I am not someone who has stepped away from Christ, but someone who has found herself feeling as though she were cheered on by him.
--I am not someone who thinks men are the problem. I think men and women are together hostages to ideas they inherited. (Men may in some cases have a greater vested interest in propagating the ideas, however.)
--I am not someone who wants women to aim to be like men in ministry. I want to see Jesus shining out through his women with the same level of influence with which he is shining through his men.
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