I am out of town this week and am reblogging some favorite stuff from the last couple weeks while I spend time with my family at the happiest place on earth! See you on the other side.
Today’s installment comes to you from Pam Hogeweide and is about her new book Unladylike: Resisting the Injustice of Inequality in the Church.
I am out of town this week and am reblogging some favorite blogs from the last couple weeks while I spend time with my family at the happiest place on earth! See you on the other side.
Today’s installment comes to you from Kathy Escobar and was originally published 3/9/12. Enjoy.
yesterday was international women’s day. and like usual, i’m always a little late to the party. some people think i’m a broken record when it comes to women’s equality. i’m glad. i want to use my voice & hands & feet in any small ways i can to shift the tides of inequality & injustice that strip the dignity of women.
here’s why i’m pro-woman, pro-equality, pro-liberation-of-half-the-population:
1. i think Jesus was. every interaction Jesus had with women was to set them free and lift their burdens of bondage. and he said we were supposed to be like him. i don’t know why the church built on his name has done the exact opposite; it still baffles me.
2. women’s wisdom will make the world better. it’s said that the same way of thinking that got us into our problems can’t get us out. it’s time for some new minds & hearts to get in the mix so that more creative, peaceful, collaborative solutions can be considered in our families, cities, churches, ministries, and organizations.
3. it’s good for men, too. i don’t want things to shift to women on top & men beneath them, either. i’m pro-equality. our freedom is tied up together. when we learn how to be equals, alongside one another as partners, brothers & sisters, teammates, and friends, it reflects God’s image in all kinds of beautiful ways.
4. the church should be the leader of restoring dignity and equality, instead of dragging along behind. so i may not be able to change the whole big church but i can play my part in cultivating equality & freedom in our little one.
5. others need us to fight for their freedom. many can’t fight. we have liberties others don’t. our freedom is all tangled up together. if we stay stuck, others stay stuck. if we get free, we can participate in setting others free, too.
6. i have to look in my daughter’s eyes. i have a responsibility to do whatever i can to make sure she has every opportunity she deserves inside & outside of the church. i can’t tolerate someone telling her she is less because of her gender.
7. i have to look in my son’s eyes, all 4 of them. they deserve equal partners who will show up, and participate in relationship instead of remain silenced and diminished. they deserve to be set free of the bondage of male stereotypes that limit and damage.
7. yeah, the next generation needs us. we can’t leave them hanging. we have to keep paving the way, like the brave men & women before us, to make their path less & less bumpy.
8. when we are silent, we stand on the side of the oppressor. it’s easier to play nice. it’s easier to follow the status quo. it’s easier to stick with the crowd and keep supporting churches & the media & systems that strip dignity and freedom. but when we do, we condone inequality and align with oppression.
9. we must be the change we want to see. i can’t sit around waiting for the church to change. the kingdom isn’t going to drop out of the sky. God uses people to change the world.
10. freedom isn’t just a bigger cage. liberation means full freedom in Christ, not just lesser-oppression.
happy international women’s day, one day late.
may we keep playing our part in liberation.
what about you? what motivates you to keep advocating for freedom?
In honor of women’s history month I plan to feature historical women I admire throughout the month. Today’s featured Eshat Chayil (woman of valor) is Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
She was an American social activist, abolitionist, and prominent figure in the early woman’s movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women’s rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls,New York, is frequently cited as the beginning of the organized woman’s rights and woman’s suffrage movements in the United States.
This is her Declaration:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.
The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
”
[3]
[edit] Sentiments
Closing Remarks
“ Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.
The 2012 Wildgoose Festival from The Work Of The People on Vimeo. 8WR3B6XAKWCY
The Wild Goose Festival is so named because of a belief that the Celts used the wild goose (an geadh-glas) as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit.
The Festival‘s web site puts it this way:
The Wild Goose is a Celtic spirituality metaphor that evokes unpredictability, beauty, and grace. The festival resonates with this image because we recognize that in the current climate of religious and political division and lack of civility, embracing the creative and open nature of our faith is perhaps our greatest asset for re-building and strengthening our relationships with each other, with our enemies, with our stories, our questions, and the other. In that spirit, in an informal setting, and in the context of creative and respectful relationships, we invite you to imagine a new world with us.
The Festival’s creators envision it as an intersection of justice, spirituality, music and art. They welcome everyone and they do not censor the conversation. They like to say they ” invite respectful – but fearless – conversation and action for the common good.”
Last year in a blog post he wrote just before heading to the first Wild Goose Festival, Jim Wallace (who will be one of the conversation starters this year) wrote this:
Too often, it feels like we need to make a choice between the work of this world, and the work of the Spirit, or between a personal focus, or a social focus of the gospel. “Either/or” marks how some churches present the Christian faith. Often, however, this is a false dichotomy. Early in the days of the Sojourners community I remember that one of our favorite words was “and.” We would talk about personal salvation and social justice, prayer and peacemaking, faith and action, belief and obedience, salvation and discipleship, worship and politics, spiritual transformation and social transformation. These were things that complemented one another and deepened each other instead of being in opposition.
He went on to refer to the Festival as “an “and” kind of space. I like that. It feels like a deep breath of clean crisp early morning mountain air.
Today the organizers announced this years line up of speakers and musicians. The soundtrack will be eclectic mix of rock, worldbeat, hiphop, spoken word and folk protest. (Including, one of my best friend’s brother’s band Damion Suomi and the Minor Prophets).
The conversation will begin with many voices:
Brian McLaren
Alexia Salvatierra
Rita Nagashima Brock
Shane Claiborne
Lisa Sharon Harper
Vincent Harding
Tema Okun
Tim Tyson
Jim Wallice
Leroy Barber
Julie Clawson
Dave Andrews
The dates for the festival are June 21-24. The event is held at Shakori Hills, a 72-acre farm owned by a community arts center known for hosting several regional blue grass festivals each year. Shakori Hills is approximately one hour from Durham, North Carolina. There will also be amazing locavore food vendors from Durham’s food truck culture. You can get all the cost info and register here.
Yesterday I took a road trip to Waco with one of my favorite people to hear Rachel Held Evans speak at Baylor University‘s chapel service. Let’s just say, I went expecting awesomeness and I was not disappointed. We didn’t just get to hear Rachel speak at chapel, we also got to head to “The Bobo” (The Bobo Spiritual Life Center) and participate in a brown bag lunch Q & R session. When I walked into the room I noticed there was an open seat next to RHE and well, I’m not gonna lie, I totally almost ran to sit in it. There were several things I took away from my day at Baylor.
1. Truett Seminary is emergent and egalitarian friendly! Who knew, right? Yesterday I met Ryan Richardson and his lovely wife Kristen. He is an Associate Chaplain and the Director of Worship at Baylor and she is an Associate Chaplain and Director for Formation and Baptist Student Ministries. He enthusiastically told me that Truett Seminary has been quite egalitarian for several years. Ryan is responsible for scheduling the chapel speakers and has brought in speakers like Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and, of course, Rachel Held Evans (twice!).
2. While Rachel was talking she said something that caught my ear. The Bible is a conversation starter not a conversation ender. We often make the Bible something it never says it is. We call it a guide book, a blue print, a manual and a constitution, when in reality it is none of these. I like McLaren’s picture of the Bible as a library.
First, we must displace the habit of reading the Bible flatly. In a constitution, Article 5 has the same authority as Article 2. When the Bible is read this way, Jesus’ life and words are pressed down and flattened to the same level as those of Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, and Jude. In this approach, the words of and about Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, and Jude are all “inspired Scripture,” so they all have the same value and authority. This elevation of the Bible above Christ is remarkably common in conservative churches, where it would never be stated so baldly, but is nevertheless rampant. In this light, it’s interesting to analyze the use of the words “Bible” and “biblical” in names and discourse. Think of the subtle (but potentially significant) difference between a Bible church and a community of disciples of Christ, or a Bible college and a discipleship college, or a Bible teacher and a disciple-maker. Think of the difference between arguing that an idea or behavior is biblical (meaning one can use constitutional reading techniques to justify it) and claiming that it is Christ-like. One might argue (by avoiding everything we’re recommending here!) that it is biblical to commit genocide by quoting Deuteronomy 7, but one could never claim it is Christ-like.
When we view the Bible as a library, we are free to place more importance on the words of Jesus over the words of Paul or the words about genocide. Jesus is -and was – God made flesh. He is the perfect representation of all we are to strive to become. We are encouraged to have the mind of Christ, not the mind of Moses or even of Paul. Rachel talked about this again in her post yesterday about Christian Smith’s book, The Bible Made Impossible. Please forgive the quote within a quote but I thought it was a good insight.
In The Bible Made Impossible, Smith tackles the problem of “biblicism,” which he defines as “a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability.”
Biblicism falls apart, Smith says, because of the “the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism,” for “even among presumably well-intentioned readers—including many evangelical biblicists—the Bible, after their very best efforts to understand it, says and teaches very different things about most significant topics…It becomes beside the point to assert a text to be solely authoritative or inerrant, for instance, when, lo and behold, it gives rise to a host of many divergent teachings on important matters.”
3. Another point she made that I loved was that the Bible does not layout one path to biblical womanhood (or manhood for that manner). She pointed out that often today, the 50s ideal of June Cleaver is lifted up as the model of biblical womanhood. In reality, the world and time in which the Bible was written had never seen the likes of June Cleaver. In fact, you can search high and low in scripture and you will not find a single woman who fits that model. The Bible is full of woman and about the only thing that is for sure is that every one of them is unique and different and has her own gifts just like all of us. I don’t know about you, but I am so comforted that God doesn’t choose to give women just one blueprint of what biblical womanhood is all about, but instead provides many vastly different examples of what it means to be an Aishat Chayil! Woman of Valor!!
4. I was also struck by the story Rachel told about the ceremony she and her friend had honoring the women of the Bible who were victims of violence perpetrated in the name of God. She talked about how we need to remember them, how we need to honor them by telling their stories. It is easy to read over the difficult passages of the Bible and forget that these were real people with real lives who were made to suffer in the name of God. I don’t think these stories are included in our library we call the Bible because it is the way things were supposed to be. Rather, these stories serve as examples of what horrible things can be done in the name of God. I think these stories are warnings. God’s way of saying, this isn’t me, this isn’t what I want…stop it. “I desire mercy not sacrifice.” Ultimately, God sends his son because the message just doesn’t seem to be coming through. Jesus comes to love, to sacrifice, to ransom the captives and set at liberty those who are being oppressed. He comes to save not to condemn. He comes to forgive sin not to throw a stone.
There were many, many more things that I took away from my trip and hopefully I will get a chance to share more of them later. Suffice it to say that if Rachel is coming to somewhere close to you, I encourage you to take a little road trip to see her. Conversation over.
“Let me take you back to the tree in Eden
If you read it you’ll see that Eve was deceived
But Adam’s the one who let her eat
Instead of leading
No we ain’t leading
We Bump That
Basically little boys with muscles and our mustache
To femininity we need a remedy
The God-Man 100% masculinity.”
The above quote is from a new song called, “Man Up Anthem” by 116 Clique featuring Lecrae from Lecrae’s record label, Reach Records. It is a sentiment found all too often in Christendom and one that is slowly being chipped away at by people like Lindsey Haskins and blogs like Jesus Creed. In today’s post on the Jesus Creed blog, Ms. Haskins shows how in spite of Pipers assertion that,”for the maximum flourishing of both men and women” the church should and must have a “masculine feel”, nothing could be further from the truth.
Piper says, “the Father and the Son create man and woman in His image and give them the name man, the name of the male.”
Man Up Anthem says, “Let me take you back to the tree in Eden, if you read it you’ll see that eve was deceived but Adam is the one who let it in.”
Here are some thoughts on women from well respected church fathers:
Chrysostom, speaking of Eve in the garden – “…the woman taught once for all and upset everything…for the female sex is weak and vain, and here this is said of the whole sex”
Tertullian – women are the “ianua diabolic” or “the gate of the devil” (On Female Dress, 1.1).
St. Clement of Alexandria – “Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman…the consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame.
St Thomas Aquinas – “Good order would have been wanting in the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves. So by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in men the discretion of reason predominates.”
I could go on and on.
Piper says, “Now, from all of that I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And being God, a God of love, He has done that for our maximum flourishing both male and female.”
Man Up Anthem says, “The femininity, we need a remedy, the God-Man, a 100 percent (strength) masculinity.”
Clearly when one looks at the history of women in the church it has NOT been “for the maximum flourishing of both men and women”. In fact, if a woman did manage to slip through the cracks and overcome societal efforts to deprive her of education, equality and opportunity, she was met with surprise and astonishment. They were so opposed to the notion that women as a gender were capable of such things that they would de-feminize her and assign manhood to her instead of her God given femaleness. They said things like:
Clement of Alexandria – “Women must seek wisdom, like men, even if men are superior and have first place in every field, at least if they are not effeminate”
Paulinus of Nola – “What a woman she is, if one can call so manly a Christian a woman!”
Palladius – she was “not a woman but a manly creature: a man in everything but body”
Melania the Younger – because of her great piety or “manly deeds” was claimed to be “like a man” by her male admirers since “she had surpassed the limits of her sex and taken on a mentality that was manly, or rather angelic”
Haskins also points out that this way of thinking whether from Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria or John Piper is damaging to God’s daughters. How could it not be? She asserts:
When holiness is equated to masculinity, it is rather difficult to side-step notions of femaleness—or “femininity”—as ontological inferiority. If by nature weaker physically, emotionally and spiritually as compared to men, the logical—and lived—conclusion against all lip service to the contrary has been that women do not share equally with men in the imago dei.
The line from Haskins that reminded me of the Lecrae song was this, ““The Son of God came into the world to be a man” [which] seems to infer—especially in light of the greater arc of Piper’s vision—that it was maleness which God redeemed, not humanity. The lyrics say, “The femininity, we need a remedy, the God-Man, a 100 percent (strength) masculinity”. I assert that it is not masculinity that saved us from femininity; rather, that love compelled Christ to come and save us from fear, hate and darkness; that love compelled Christ to sacrifice all to save us from ourselves, our sin and our selfishness. He came to restore our relationship with the one who made us BOTH, male and female, in his image. TOGETHER the two halves of humanity reflect his glory.
I agree with Haskins when she says:
What the church needs now is not by any means a “masculine feel.” The church has had this broken and un-balanced “feel” for millennia and far from producing a “flourishing [for] both men and women” it has too often been complicit in a systematic de-humanization of half its constituency. When masculinity becomes the virtue par execellence the value of what it means to be a woman or “feminine” is mortally undercut. What the church desperately needs now is a prophetic voice reminding us to value both men and women as equally and wholly made in the imago dei.
Ms. Haskins, may I humbly suggest that you are one such prophet.
When you were a kid did you ever sit at the top of a sledding hill that looked like it was a gazillion feet high? And did you and your friends have a harrowing name for it like dead man’s hill?
We did. The first time I saw it I think it almost blocked out the sun. As we began the walk to the summit I thought this is the biggest hill I have ever seen. As far as I was concerned, if I was sledding down dead man’s hill I might as well be heliskiing (being dropped out of a helicopter while on skis). I was surely going to DIE!
But you know what? My Dad offered to go down with me and I thought, if my Dad goes with me it will be scary but I am going to be okay. I am not going to die.
So we are flying down dead man’s hill, me and my dad and it is the scariest thing I have done in my young life. Yet somehow, strangely, when we got to the bottom I asked him to go with me again and again.
Have you ever been back to your own “dead man’s hill” as an adult? I have. I was shocked! IT ISN’T THAT BIG! I will tell you it isn’t nearly as big and as scary as I thought it was. Sliding down it doesn’t even approach heliskiing any more than my son’s old race track resembles Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
That’s why when I saw Rachel Held Evens post this morning (READ IT HERE) I knew I needed to pull out my sled and invite you to fly down the slippery slope with me and Jesus. Yes the slope is big, sometimes it is icy but together with Jesus we won’t be in any danger. In fact, we might have some fun on the way. Sure our knuckles may be white from holding on and our voices may be hoarse from screaming on the way down. But when we reach the bottom and fall in a heap breathless we will look back up at it and realize that “dead man’s hill” isn’t really going to kill us. Heck it just might bring us closer to where we always wanted to be.
Doesn’t this whole thing ENTIRELY miss the point? It makes me want to sit my 9 year old daughter down tonight and say, “The goal of your life is NOT to get the “right guy” to like you.”
Sadly, I think that many people in and out of the church miss this point entirely.
The point, young women, is this:
1. Your worth as a woman is not about what kind of guy you can get to like you.
2. It is not your responsibility to “get a guy to respect you.” It is your responsibility to be a woman of character. This does not guarantee men will respect you. Trust me.
[Ironic, in the video he says your self worth shouldn’t come from any guy you date when the whole video is about getting the “right guy” to like you.]
3. Be educated. About everything. Know your God, know your body, learn everything you can about every subject that interests you and many that don’t.
[I am totally for learning about what my husband likes and finding out why he likes it, but the video implies that guys like (and girls don’t like) things such as call of duty and football and only girls like shopping (I personally know people of both genders who disprove this type of thinking including my husband who likes football & shopping and not CoD).]
4. Don’t let your dreams be limited by your anatomy.
[a penis should not be required for entry into any profession, vocation or discussion]
5. Your “highest calling” (I am not exactly sure what this means) may or may not be motherhood. It is rather becoming all that God created you to be. Which may include being a mother.
6. Go after life with gusto.
[in spite of the fact that some may call you pushy, domineering or worse]
7. Don’t even consider a man that doesn’t consider you his spiritual and intellectual equal.
8. Men have self control just like women do. They are responsible for their own sexual sins. We are equal in the eyes of God.
[Many simultaneously and erroneously believe that women are both the source of all sexual sin and somehow the gender that possesses the self control and even has the responsibility to say no to sex.]
9. Playing “hard to get” is a game and it is manipulation. Don’t play games in your relationships. Be honest, say what you feel. You don’t have to play “hard to get” to get the right guy to like you.
[Do you know what it means to play hard to get? http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Hard-to-Get%5D
10. Become a woman you would love to have as a friend, be interesting, be educated, be honest and treat everyone with love & respect, including yourself.
It’s true, I am a Cosmo subscriber. I read it for the articles on sex. In fact that is pretty much the only reason I buy it. Oh, I might peruse the other pages occasionally looking at the latest fashion trends or hairstyles, but make no mistake I buy it for the sex tips. While I am sure this will shock the sensibilities of some of my readers, I suspect that many other women in the church will be calling me a “fun fearless female” (my fellow Cosmo readers will get the reference). Of course I do not always agree with everything I read in Cosmo, but that is true of almost everything I read. Since I began on this quest a couple years ago to *ahem* actively embrace my womanhood, I have started doing a lot of things to educate myself, like hosting “let’s talk about sex” nights for the women I know (many of them followers of Jesus) who are longing for friends who are not afraid to talk openly and frankly about sex. I have also started reading lots of books; books about women and their position in society; books about women and their place in the church and ministry of Jesus; books about women and their relationships in marriage, their homes and their workplaces. I am also relatively certain that Novitas was the first church to ever have a Passion Party as a fund raiser for a mission trip. So all you fun fearless females out there, I hope this post encourages you to educate yourselves not only about your sexuality, but also about who you are as a person and as a follower of Jesus. Go ahead, pull out your most recent issue of Cosmo or maybe a copy of Why Not Women? by Loren Cunningham and don’t be ashamed. Be an Ashat Chail (woman of valor)! Sex (within marriage) is a beautiful thing. Education is a beautiful thing. Becoming who you were always meant to be is a very beautiful thing.
I have often thought if I were going to get a tattoo it would be words, just words. Words are amazingly, shatteringly, stunningly powerful, playful, hurtful, inspiring things. The problem with tattoos is they are painful and I don’t like pain. And they are permanent, and frankly I think I would end up changing my mind. But, if I were getting a tattoo for today to put into words my motto for the year, it would say, “Aishet Chayil”. Which means, woman of valor. I will not be making individual resolutions this year. Instead my singular resolution is to to tap in to the dreams God has placed in my heart that I have only begun to discover. To grab on to the corners of life and shake them as Anis Mogjani says in his famous poem. To “shake the dust” off of them and finally believe the resounding beat of my heart that echoes the very words God speaks over me and all my sisters…Aishet Chayil!
So this year, is not about what I will do or what I will have but rather what I will be. I will be strong. I will be courageous. I will be a dreamer. I will be a lover. And in so doing, I will embrace all God has for me. Hang on heart, I am feeling the urge to “shake the dust.”
word of a woman 