Jesus is a Feminist...

Jesus is a feminist.

Jesus is for women, releases them into ministry, gave them spiritual authority in an age where they were considered less than human, and continues to do so today.  I do not understand why anyone would choose not to believe so, especially based on Scriptural evidence.  In fact, I would go as far as to say that to deny Jesus’ empowerment of women and His treatment of them as equals of men in terms of their ability to exercise spiritual authority, and to abuse scripture to back that opinion up, has the potential to be nothing more than sugar-coated misogyny.

Strong words. Why so belligerent Claire?

I know that God is passionate about both men and women becoming all they were created to be in Him, fulfilling all their creative potential and exercising the fullness of their gifting without hindrance or hesitation.  Nothing excites me more than seeing a man or woman of God walk unhindered into all God is calling them to join Him in.

However, along with many other women (and I know of many men who argue for egalitarianism on behalf of women too), I could talk about the conversations I frequently have with men who say that they have a 'complementarian' theological understanding of the roles of men & women.  They would not say that they have a Patriarchal view  – exclusively male leadership in the church, home, public life etc (basically unveiled biblically sanctioned misogyny) - but would still hold that men and women, whilst equal in value and ‘personhood’, are created to hold different roles and responsibilities, assigning leadership authority roles to men and more ‘supporting’ or ‘leadership but not with overall authority’ roles to women. A view which, honestly, I find as patronising as I do theologically unsound, as I am led to believe that in Christ ‘there is neither male nor female.’

Or, I could highlight a church that I used to do some partnership work with who were quite happy for me to teach the young people, and invited me to speak at women’s events, but would not ask me to speak to the gathered community when men were present because I was a woman, and so was not to teach them.

Or I could mention a meeting I went to a few years ago of church leaders (all male except for me) in my local community at which, during the introductions stage, I introduced myself as being on the Staff of Christ Church and a Pastor, and one of the men in the room was helpful enough to point out to everyone that I ‘do the youth work’ in order to distinguish me from the other ‘kosher’ ministers in the room (presumably due to their penises).

But, it just so happens that a male friend bought me a book last week that he thought I’d like, and I did, called ‘The Liberating Truth, How Jesus Empowers women,’ by Danielle Strickland, which was published in mid-April this year. I read it in a couple of hours – it’s relatively short and pithy and written in a somewhat ‘Pop-Theology’ style, but is incredibly weighty in the conclusions it reaches, which are soundly backed up with scripture and historical analysis, and are conclusions that I wholeheartedly agree with and have since I became a Jesus-Follower.

In the many years since I began following the Jesus Way I have read many books, by both men and women, on the issues of Women and the Bible, and have pored over many theological articles that wrestle with the implications for women of certain passages of scripture. 

So, why respond to this book so passionately? Well, whilst it doesn’t say anything that I or we haven’t read before, Danielle Strickland is a pretty feisty woman of God with a wide audience to which she communicates, and I have a feeling that the publication of this particular book is going to stir up a whole new raft of girls and women who are simply not prepared to accept the kinds of reading and application of scripture that suggest that women are called and permitted to be anything other than full partners in every aspect of Kingdom Life.

Even apart from His response to women in crisis (the woman at the well, the men caught throwing stones, the woman suffering from bleeding) Jesus had women in His close circle of friends, none amongst ‘the twelve’ admittedly, but mentioned in the same breath as them in a description in Luke 8, and hailed in many places as the only ones who stuck with him through the hardest parts of those last days. They were His disciples, learning from Him and ministering alongside Him.  Women were the first to meet the Risen Jesus, and many would argue that, given the fact that she met the Risen Jesus and was commissioned by Him to go and tell others about the truth of the resurrection, Mary is the first Apostle – and at least one other woman, Junia in Romans 16:7, is described as an Apostle in scripture.

Mary & Martha are particular examples in Jesus' close circle and when we read one of their most famous moments with Jesus, as recorded in the scriptures, we see a vivid example of the way Jesus chose to engage with women – in no way did He think of women’s roles in the typical and culturally restricted ways.  In her book, Strickland explores this dynamic - as Martha takes on the typically feminine role of serving and hurrying round, whereas Mary takes on a role that many people would view as the ‘doe-eyed-gazing-at-Jesus’ role.  Far from it.  In this encounter, Mary is taking on the traditionally male role – ‘sitting at the feet’ of someone (as is evident in other places in the New Testament – see Paul and Gamaliel for example) was to say that you were their student, was to learn from them and imitate them.  And Mary does this in a cultural setting in which women were forbidden from intellectual pursuits. What does Jesus do?  Tell her to remember her place?  No, He tells her that, not only does He regard her as actually ‘having a choice’, that she has made the right choice.

There is no room in this blog post (which is already far too long) to explore many of the the most often used passages of scripture in the debate about Women and Ministry (particularly over issues of authority, ‘headship’ and teaching) – passages in Timothy, Titus, Ephesians and more.

What I will say is that there is plenty of concrete, sound theological study showing a contextual and historic understanding of these passages that throws an entirely different and just as potentially ‘orthodox’ light on their meanings, and does not leave women out in the dark.

Briefly – one such passage is found in Timothy which talks about women not having authority – ‘authentein’ – over men. This is a letter which, as some signs in it suggest, was written to Timothy whilst he was in Ephesus.  Ephesus was the headquarters of the radical feminist cult of Artemis where women ruled the show, and theologian Catherine Kroeger has suggested that the word ‘authentein’ has its origins in sexual and murderous cultic practices linked to the Temple Cults, and therefore if the word assumed by many to merely mean ‘authority’ does indeed refer to sexual cultic behaviour in this passage, it gives us quite a different interpretation of the passage indeed, and does not allude to the type of 'authority' that we might first read it as doing.

Jesus is a feminist. 

I really don’t understand why people have a problem with that.

I have male friends who, whilst loving women dearly, still hold on to a theological view of my place in the Kingdom that I personally find very restrictive and unhelpful.  I do not understand that

.

I don’t understand why, if you love Jesus and you love People and there is a theologically sound understanding of scripture available that regards women as equal in both personhood and ability to exercise gifting but does not abandon orthodox doctrines, you would choose to stick with a system that boxes women in.

I just don’t understand it.