Or, "Why the owning of breasts should fall under the 'Christians with Disabilities Act'.
It all began with a book. A book that Sue recommended to me that has changed my perspective. It has rocked my world. It made me weep. It's called Dance of the Dissident Daughter. It's no secret that I'm an egalitarian when it comes to faith. In other words, there is no place in my spiritual life for misogyny, sexism or patriarchy. There is no point in arguing with me. If you believe in those things, I don't read the same bible you do. Or know the same God. Women have been subjugated, enslaved, oppressed and every other kind of evil thing in the name of God for thousands of years. I read DDD with eagerness and tears. It impacted me, deeply and set me free. There now exist words for my pain and validation for my decision to no longer pay any homage to a religious institution that has been so genuinely evil to 50% of the population -- women (and that's not counting the other minorities that religion has been evil to), in the name of GOD.
Next, I read another book: The Fall. It's only one book, one opinion, but it makes so much sense to me. At the dawn of biblical times, something changed. As you may have guessed, I don't believe in literal biblical creation. I believe there were humans on this earth long before the beginning of the bible. But, something changed at the beginning of the bible, the beginning of recorded history. Women, who had been more or less equals in their societies, became subservient, and God became a tool with which to control them. Why? Well you'll have to read the book to find out. Needless to say, it had a lot to go with the end of the great ice age and the beginning of agriculture, and child-bearing. However, this has helped me immensely with reconciling the biblical roles and mandates to women as cultural and, decidedly, not Godly.
Then, a few days ago, "Naked Pastor" David Hayward posted a cartoon "2 Problems with Women Clergy"; (they have breasts). It may seem laughable, but I have been given this precise argument in the past: women can't preach to a mixed congregation because they have breasts. Breasts are distracting for men...men don't want to think about sex when they should be thinking about Jesus. Riiiight. Maybe those men need to put on their big boy Underoos and grow up.
Last year, my friend Pam Hogeweide was invited into a book project with Jim Henderson. This project is for the purpose of "researching how the modern American church treats women". However, due to complications with the publisher, Pam was dropped as co-author. Read more about her take on the experience HERE. I value Jim's willingness to speak to this topic, and I hope and pray that his authority as an author leads to the willingness of many men to read the book. However, I can't help but express my frustration that there is no woman co-author for such a topic, but maybe that is the path this project is supposed to take in order to be what it needs to be.
In spite of no longer being involved with the project, Pam recently assisted Jim with interviews of some women here in Portland. I was one of those women and I was humbled and honored to participate. However, this interview forced me to articulate what happened to me as a woman in Christianity, and how escaping that changed my life. It forced me to think clearly and be rational about what, exactly, it is about the widely held view of women in the church that is so damaging. In a nutshell, because women have been told for millenia that they are not as good as men, they have come to thoroughly believe it and have learned to operate within the boundaries set for them by men in order to survive.
In the process of his research, Jim commissioned the Barna Group to do a study about women's views of how the church treats them. The results were beyond fascinating, they were jaw-dropping. Jim has posted some of the results and asked for feedback. Apparently, according to the study, women who are regular church goers feel that their church treats women fairly. Say what? Because that is so far away from my own personal experience. My experience says that the majority of church going women are brainwashed. And that pisses the hell out of me. When a person is told they must hold a certain position, and that other positions are off-limits to them due to their gender and there is no other way things can be because God has mandated it that way, well, it's human nature to make the best of it, as women in church have done for thousands of years, and as the Barna research seems to suggest is still going on. But is it right? Is it fair? Is it loving? Is it of God? Decidedly, no.
I used to be one of those zombie church women. I was convinced that the bible supported complementarianism. I drank the company Kool-Aid, as Kathy so beautifully puts it. I worked my ass off to meet the criteria I was told I should meet as a woman, wife and mother, and it damn near killed me. 8/9 of my Christian women friends were on antidepressants because, as they explained it, they primarily didn't "feel good about their ability to live up to the standards they were expected to live up to", or they didn't "like their role as a Christian woman".
Ya THINK?
I didn't take antidepressants. 5 1/2 years ago I sat on the brink of suicide for the exact same reason my friends were on antidepressants. However, I didn't have the guts to kill myself because I couldn't leave my kids with that legacy, so I drank to medicate. Not surprisingly, that lead to my exit from church, and exiting church saved my life. The standard is set up to make women crazy, to make them deny themselves, to make them slaves. The ideal of the "Good Christian Woman" is hogwash, designed to make women feel like they have some measure of control, by outlining the behaviors that will gain them status as women in the church. If done properly, eventually they will earn the status of" "Good Christian Woman". But the status is only to a point, and the standards are such that no human, save Jesus, could ever truly live up to.
The idea that women shouldn't be pastors falls into the same shit-bog as the attitudes about the "Good Christian Woman". Sure, some evangelical churches give lip-service to gender equality, but it's only a false front, designed to pretend to address the problem without actually changing anything.
What is at the root of the problem?
Men.
Now, I don't mean all men are the problem, not in present day, anyhow. I mean the select few men who have the power to maintain this status quo, to preach it, to teach it, and to be heard. It's born of fear, nothing more, and it's pathetic. Somewhere along the line, men became fearful of women holding power, and for thousands of years, men have successfully oppressed half the world's population, not only in matters of religion, but in all roles, careers, and callings. It's unfortunate, and this mentality has been the driving factor for many of the world's conflicts. For, when half the population is rendered impotent...the feminine half...well, it's obvious what the historical results have been. I'm not saying that the world would be a peaceful place if women were in charge; that's a stereotype, too. I'm suggesting that, if women had historically held equal roles in religion, and in leadership in general, some things would be very different, for the better.
In the end, God does not have a penis. God created mankind in "our image". A very neuter God. A very male Jesus. A very female Spirit. OUR image. This life is not a masculine dictatorship, this is a dual-gender partnership working towards a complete picture of God. Until the church "gets" this, the world is working with a tremendous handicap.
This post has become altogether too long, and I haven't even begun to talk about the changes in my perspectives: about women, about Godde, about religion, the bible, life, my spiritual reality.
Until next time. Soon.
18 comments: