« The Pearcey Report | Main | From the Inbox 23 October 2005 »
October 22, 2005
C.S. Lewis and the Quirky Idea of Male Headship
If C.S. Lewis were alive today, would he write about male headship? In one sense, this question is akin to Kennedy enthusiasts arguing that JFK would have spared the nation from Viet Nam, or neo-Confederates arguing that President Davis's successor would have abolished slavery in the CSA. But a brief suggestion in a new book asks that question, a question that reveals much about what we consider "mere Christianity" in the twenty-first century.
In anticipation of the December release of Disney's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a flurry of books on C.S. Lewis and the Narnia series are hitting the chain bookstore shelves. Among the best of these is Alan Jacobs's The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis.
Jacobs, a professor of literature at Wheaton College and a brilliant essayist in his own right, makes a curious side-path discussion into Lewis's views on male headship. Jacobs rightly notes that Lewis did not consider such an idea controversial among Christians, which is why he included in Mere Christianity, which lays out "the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times."
This much is true. Lewis did not believe male headship was a controversial idea among Christians, because it wasn't...and hadn't been for nearly 2000 years of church history. Moreover, Lewis didn't believe the idea was really all that controversial even among non-Christians, once one peeled back airy egalitarian theory. As Lewis says in Mere Christianity:
As I have said, I am not married myself, but as far as I can see, even a woman who wants to be the head of her own house does not usually admire the same state of things when she finds it going on next door. She is much more likely to say ‘Poor Mr. X! Why he allows that appalling woman to boss him about the way she does is more than I can imagine.’ I do not think she is even very flattered if anyone mentions the fact of her own ‘headship.’ There must be something unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule.
Nonetheless, Jacobs argues that Lewis's views of male headship would be articulated quite differently were he alive today:
Arguments for the ordination of women were then rarely made by people committed to traditional Christian orthodoxy; that is why he brings into the argument the different question of whether it is appropriate to speak of God as 'Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.' He assumes that people who want women to be ordained will also have serious reservations about all sorts of other beliefs that have historically constituted orthodoxy and that if we follow their recommendations we will find that we have 'embarked on a different religion' than Christianity. What has emerged since Lewis's death is a large body of orthodox Christians, many of whom revere C.S. Lewis and wish to promote traditional Christianity as vigorously as he did, who see no difficulty with the ordination of women. If Lewis were writing today, he would surely leave that subject alone, but in his time it had a different resonance, a different set of contexts.
Professor Jacobs assumes then that Lewis's views on male headship were culturally conditioned, that he would not consider the matter as important if only he could see the orthodox Christian feminism of, what, Christians for Biblical Equality? The Wheaton College faculty?
What Jacobs fails to ask is whether contemporary Christian egalitarianism doesn't bring with it the very theological concerns Lewis addresses not only in Mere Christianity but in "Priestesses in the Church." After all, the Trinitarian problems are alive and well. Every interest group pushing for women's ordination in contemporary Protestantism has pushed ultimately for some degree of "gender inclusive" God language, and some even the re-visioning of the God-world relationship. This is true within the evangelical feminist caucuses and certainly true within the old-line denominations.
The question should be, is there a reason why, until the onset of the contemporary feminist movement, those who argued for women's ordination were rarely "committed to traditional Christian orthodoxy"? Could it be because male headship as part of the creation order reveals and explains something essential about the Fatherhood of God and the husbandry of Christ?
I heartily recommend Alan Jacobs's book on Lewis (and his other books as well). But I also recommend that we take the opportunity to think through the reasons behind why Lewis considered male headship part of the "mere Christianity" corpus. These reasons are just as relevant now as in the 1940s and 1950s.
Would Lewis write now about male headship? Well, no one can know for sure about all the contingencies of history. But we can know something about the man himself. There are many people who would be calmed into writing nothing because of the triumph of a new idea among good Western Christians, even an idea so novel that no other generation of orthodox Christians would embrace it. But C.S. Lewis?
Posted by Russell D. Moore at 04:20 PM | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c5ee953ef00d8345cf9f453ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference C.S. Lewis and the Quirky Idea of Male Headship :
Comments
"it (the New Testament) is always insisting on obedience...from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from parents to children and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from wives to husbands." (Mere Christianity)
Lewis knew he was preaching an unpopular doctrine. In That Hideous Strength, he focuses on the pernicious influence of feminism and how the demonic powers used it to create resentment in women like Jane. By submission, first to Ransom, then to Mark, she discovers her true self.
Posted by: Fr. Phil Bloom | Oct 22, 2005 11:37:33 PM
I have generally enjoyed my exposure to Touchstone, but am aggrieved to find such unexamined thinking with regards to "male headship."
When God announced to Adam and Eve the consequences of their actions, He made explicit the fact that male "dominance" would be a part of the new, fallen, "natural order." That's a very different thing than saying that this is the way God wanted (or wants) it to be.
When Paul speaks of Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law, is it not apparent that God's intention is to also begin to reverse the effects of the fall (one of which was the emergence of male "superiority")?
Paul goes on later to show that both men and women derive their being from the grace of the complementary gender. To claim one as superior over the other is to go against God's created order, where we were made "male and female, in the image of God."
Male primacy in the creation story does not in any way imply superiority --nor does female "ultimacy" imply it either (the way we try to argue in the creation story by noting that man is the last, and therefore supposedly the "pinnacle" of God's created order --funny how we don't try to make that argument for Eve).
That God incorporates all of what we call "male" and "female" is explicit in many ways, including the metaphors God applies to Himself.
That God incorporates "maleness" was, in fact, a great surprise to many in the opposing cultures among whom the early stories which comprise Genesis were circulated.
The most ancient faiths primarily deified femininity, portraying an unbalanced view of God's nature and aspirations towards us.
The "toledoth" theory of composition for the book of Genesis makes plain that the real revelatory impact of the Biblical account was to create a culture which sought to understand and emulate a God Who was not "merely" a heavenly "nurturer" or "cosmic womb," but Who aspired for us to grow into maturity. This gave the Biblical faith vibrancy which feminine-dominated faiths didn't have.
C.S. Lewis aside, the Bible makes plain that what God wants is the mutual submission of husband and wife to each other, out of a heart of obedience rooted in love, not "scared into submission" by some kind of dominating authority.
So much so, that Paul later writes, that a man who loves his wife loves himself!
What's this overwhelming fear some men have that their wives "won't be submissive?" Isn't it, at root, a kind of self-doubt or even self-hatred? Which leads to the inability to love fully? Get over it, guys!
Another of our cultural anachromisms is to apply the notions we have of "headship" to the concept written about in the Scriptures. In New Testament times (and further back) the head was not considered the place where thoughts originated, nor was the head a particularly "primary organ."
Now, had the Scriptures described a kind of "male HEARTship" then some of the cultural baggage we put today on "headship" might be warranted.
As it stands, "headship" means something more like "source" or perhaps "supplier." In this light, it is not a strict delineation of heirarchy to say that a man is the head of a woman (notice this does not say all men are the head of all women --it is the marriage relationship in view here), any more than it is to say that God the Father is the head of Jesus Christ.
It is more fitting to see this passage as a prompting towards gratitude towards the one who has "supplied." In a culture which excluded women from much of public life, males pretty much (but not exclusively) were the "suppliers." Paul wants there to be gratitude for this role, rather than a blithe unrecognition of the means whereby Christian women of the time could enjoy a relative freedom.
Jesus came to kill off the roots of gender rivalries and resentments. The current lack of recognition for the kind of radical egalitarianism called for in Galatians 3:28 is a dispiriting blemish on the history of the church's devotion to its Lord, in my opinion.
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 23, 2005 5:40:50 AM
Another of our cultural anachronisms is to apply the notions we have of "headship" to the concept written about in the Scriptures. In New Testament times (and further back) the head was not considered the place where thoughts originated, nor was the head a particularly "primary organ."
That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Christ is the head of His church, which is His body. Is He not the "primary organ" of that body?
Jesus came to kill off the roots of gender rivalries and resentments.
Hmm ... my Bible seems to explain the reasons differently ...
Posted by: holmegm | Oct 23, 2005 6:54:44 AM
"Leadership" has nothing to do with "superiority" or "dominance" nor does "submission" have anything to do with "inferiority" or being a doormat.
The conflation of these concepts has led to much evil in the church today.
If marriage is to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church, it is quite clear that Christ leads and the church submits -- but look at how that happens. Christ sacrifices Himself, yes, but He also most definitely leads and we are constrained to obey. But His leading is out of love for us and for our good and we respond to that love in joyful submission to bring glory to Him; only in that submisson can He make us fully the selves He intended us to be when He created us.
Nothing on this earth delights me more than when I see this worked out in a marriage, like that of my parents, which has lasted 63 years now. There is nothing of "you submit, you slave!" about my father, nor the cowering doormat about my mother. My father leads lovingly and my mother submits joyfully, and they are beautifully the unique beings God made them to be, working in unity with Him and each other to reflect the love of their God.
I have come to see that this equation of sinful terms of dominance/superiority and cowering/inferiority with biblical leadership and submission is the worst deceit of our time.
Posted by: Beth | Oct 23, 2005 8:42:55 AM
>s I have said, I am not married myself, but as >ar as I can see, even a woman who wants to be >he head of her own house does not usually >admire the same state of things when she finds >it going on next door. She is much more likely >to say ‘Poor Mr. X! Why he allows that >appalling woman to boss him about the way she >does is more than I can imagine.’ I do not >think she is even very flattered if anyone >mentions the fact of her own ‘headship.’
I would be flattered. And as for the woman next door, I'd be asking her for tips. But then, I'm weird.
Posted by: Donna Marie Lewis | Oct 23, 2005 9:49:10 AM
The point at issue here is not one of equality. The woman is no more inferior to the man than the Son is inferior to the Father.
BUT the Son submits to the Father in a way the Father does NOT submit to the Son. Both love, glorify, delight in one another; but the Son submits to the will of the Father, not from inferiority (that's heresy), but from love. It is an act of sheer delight.
It should be the same with a man and his wife. He does not treat her as an inferior -- that also is a kind of heresy, as the marriage relationship represents not only Christ and the Church but also the mutual co-inherence of the Trinity itself. A husband must delight in and bring honor to and love his wife. And a wife submits to her husband -- not ceasing to have personality (let it never be said!), not from some inferiority, not because he is domineering, but out of love.
Submission is a freely chosen act of love. What in this idea is demeaning?
[Incidentally, I'm willing to entertain the argument that Eve, as God's final created work, WAS in some sense the pinnacle -- which I don't think would have any bearing on her submitting to Adam, although it might affect his appreciation of her.]
Posted by: firinnteine | Oct 23, 2005 11:29:18 AM
The elegant and elevated form of submission described in the above posts is rare and hard to attain and sustain. It's also far enough away from standard usage of the word to be quite understandably commonly misunderstood. (Hardly a deceit, Holmegm.)
Another problem people have with the new testament injunction is its unidirectionality. Why bar the husband from the sheer delight of submission to his spouse? The healthiest marriages I know from personal experience, including my own, involve a mixture of responsibilities and authorities. Contrary to rumor, this does not inevitably devovle into chaos and strife. It requires attention and care, but that comes with the territory of any good marriage, no matter how it's structured.
The marriage as representation of the mutual co-inherence of the Trinity itself is a) a useful metaphor only for those who subscribe to a trinitarian faith, and b) a little wobbly even so, as marriages have two components, and the Trinity, well, three.
Posted by: John Hart | Oct 23, 2005 1:43:41 PM
Few things undermine the Touchstone "project" more than the journal's apparently incapacity to get past conflating male headship in marriage with female ordination and feminist theory. If one is to understand the often flustered arguments of certain Touchstone writers and contributors, a marriage where the male isn't given absolute reign over his wife is a marriage which endorses gender inclusive language in the Bible, mandatory abortions for all, and invocation of the "Mother, Daughter, and Holy Goddess" for the Trinity. It's cute in a "John Birch Society", gun tottin', log cabin reactionary sort of way...
There's little doubt about as to what St. Paul's instructions are concerning marriage and I believe they remain uncontroversial to any devout Christian. As St. John Chrysostom so lucidly pointed out in number of his homilies on Ephesians, the teaching places equal weight on both spouses to submit themselves before the others. The more exploded reading of that teaching (as found in some of the Touchstone writings) seems to assume the husband stands in persona Christi in relation to his wife, i.e., the husband should be viewed as carrying the same authority to his wife that Christ does to the Church. The obvious (and revolting) problem with this is that unlike Christ, husbands are not God, but are instead sinful, corrupt, and prone to error.
On that same token, the wife is not the Church as the Church is for she too is of the same fallen nature as her husband. It would be better then to see the marriage relationship as an infitely inadequate reflection of the relationship of Christ to His Church. Yes, it may give us an outline for how the marriage should optimally work, but we know that's not always how it will work. Submission to a husband blindly carries with it the grave possibilities of error; submission to Christ never does.
My concern over all of the talk of "male headship" is that it rarely carries with it the appearance of wanting stable marriages predicated on mutual love and respect. Instead, it wants stable marriages predicated upon the ignorance of the wife and the authoritarian rule of the husband. Perhaps to the writers who espouse such trends there is a nostalgia for the "good ole' days" they may wistfully recall as children, but I'm not sure there is much substance beyond that. Perhaps it burns their biscuits to no end that women may actually make competent lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc. and that women may be more intelligent than men, but I'm not sure why a journal of "mere Christianity" should really care. Of course, I suppose they could always just default to being a journal of "mere Masculinity" and leave it at that. Heaven knows all we need are more round shouldered scholars telling us what real men are made of...
Posted by: Gabriel Sanchez | Oct 23, 2005 2:19:08 PM
"[A] useful metaphor only for those who subscribe to a trinitarian faith."
True, but the relationship between Christ and the Church is not likely to offer much more assistance to anyone who does not ascribe to something broadly resembling Christianity. Theology proper and Ecclesiology are hardly separable.
"...both spouses to submit themselves before the others."
True; no quibbles with Chrysostom on this point, if I understand him. We are all commanded to submit to one another (Eph. 5:21), all commanded to give preference to one another in honor (Rom. 12:10). I'm merely arguing that that works out in different ways depending on whether one is the wife (Eph. 5:22-24) or the husband (Eph. 5:25-30) within the mutually giving roles of a marriage relationship.
My goal, when I am married, is to delight in serving my wife, putting her needs and desires ahead of my own, loving her and giving myself up for her as Christ gave Himself up for the Church. The fair certainty of your predictions that I will fail many times in this has no bearing on whether or not it is right. Not human capacity but Divine Grace sets the limits for what God commands. I don't see that this changes the Biblical injunction she will have to submit to me. Only -- and this is ESSENTIAL, otherwise you are certain to misunderstand me -- it is NOT MY JOB TO MAKE HER SUBMIT. As I argued above, submission is a free act, rooted in love; in the Christian sense of the word, it is not something that can be forced on a wife -- and for her husband to do so would be a violation of his headship. She submits to him. He dies for her.
I'm afraid I still can't see how this is problematic or unfair; and, before someone points out (correctly) that I am male and necessarily a bit limited in my own viewpoint, I know a number of Godly, incredibly intelligent and talented Christian women who hold the same view.
Lewis in "The Four Loves" suggests that the male headship works out chiefly in two ways: one, in sexual intercourse, and the other in the his joyous duty to sacrifice himself for her. As Lewis puts it, the first is a crown of paper, the second a crown of thorns.
Incidentally, I really have no problem whatsoever with the fact that many women are more intelligent than many men, and that women are perfectly capable of serving as lawyers, doctors, etc. Again, I simply can't see how that is relevant to the question. (Maybe I'm dense. If so, I'm sure someone will be kind enough to tell me. Tough love.)
I expect to be thoroughly excoriated now, given the current trends of the conversation, but I believe this is the truth, and I am willing to stand up for it -- I hope speaking it also in sincere love for those brothers and sisters who disagree with me. If I have fallen into error in either content or presentation, please correct me in the same spirit of love.
Posted by: firinnteine | Oct 23, 2005 3:56:29 PM
> If one is to understand the often flustered arguments of certain Touchstone writers and contributors
A goal which appears not to have been met...
Posted by: David Gray | Oct 23, 2005 7:04:11 PM
Firinnteine: as holmegm has pointed out in an earlier thread, seems there are some participants here @ Mere Comments, amongst the Church-tradition-above-Scripture sort, who proudly, blithely ignore Scripture's clear teachings on certain subjects and go along with the World's view instead, looking down their noses at us ol' Biblical literalist unsophisticates... Heck with 'em...
Posted by: anon | Oct 23, 2005 10:10:14 PM
"My concern over all of the talk of "male headship" is that it rarely carries with it the appearance of wanting stable marriages predicated on mutual love and respect. Instead, it wants stable marriages predicated upon the ignorance of the wife and the authoritarian rule of the husband."
That's a straw man.
Posted by: curious | Oct 23, 2005 11:15:19 PM
I appreciate the elegant ways which have been noted in which mutual submission is worked out in marriage, as God restores us more and more to the situation before the fall, as He perfects us in love --in little pockets here and there for now, granted, but the goal should not be in doubt!
I'm also surprised that no one has challenged the notion that while the Son submits to the Father, the Father does not submit to the Son in any fashion!
Am I to believe that this implies, by analogy, that there are whole households of Touchstone readers out there which are dominated by fathers whose every waking moment is in the "leading" of their wives and children, especially their boys, rather than responding and listening respectfully to their "prayers and petitions?"
That the agendas for child-rearing are always set by the fathers, and it's never the case where a father considers what will delight their children's hearts, and joyfully supplies them with it?
Please say it isn't so. And I'll keep on weathering the hackneyed criticism that I'm letting my traditions shape my thinking, rather than the Bible.
Just to set the record straight, I'm a (closet) Biblical inerrantist who nevertheless believes that the important thing is the Bible's unquestionable authority as God's revelation.
I'm also very aware of the dangers of surrendering my understanding of the Bible to translations of it made by well-meaning people in specific contexts.
Which means I'm not from the camp which says, "If speaking King James English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me!"
Such intellectual and spiritual resignation is a sign of deadness, not of spiritual vigor. Unless we keep wrestling with our understandings of the Bible which we think we know so well, we become spiritually stagnant. God wants a relationship with us, not just to give us a set of rules to live by.
So life-changing were these truths for Paul, that he went from the every-morning devotional prayer of a Pharisee to proclaiming its antithesis!
Listen carefully to the prayers of a devout Pharisee: "I thank God that Thou hast not made me a beggar, a Gentile, nor a woman."
Then hear Paul's antithesis: "There is neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor freeman; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Let that radical message of essential equality before God sink in and do its life-transforming work. Then consider the women Paul addresses as his equals throughout his letters, even giving the title of "apostle" to a woman he admires for her tireless work for the sake of the Gospel.
Perhaps for those who are not familiar with these parts of their Bibles, a trip to the Christians for Biblical Equality website would be of great service --www.cbeinternational.org
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 23, 2005 11:29:50 PM
Can anyone please give a few concrete examples of correct and Biblically sanctioned male headship? I have read a lot of abstract stuff on this topic, but I'm not sure how it's supposed to play out in real life.
Is the guiding principle of male headship that the man has the "deciding vote" if he and his wife disagree on something?
Posted by: Adrienne | Oct 24, 2005 5:46:16 AM
Could somebody please explain exactly what male headship/female submission actually means in application? Most of the discussion of this is purely theoretical and fails to adress the question "what are we supposed to do about this?"
On another note, what is the relationship between the Fall and male headship? I'm pretty sure that God said to Eve that she would desire her husband and he would have dominion over her as a consequence of the fall (can't check because I'm in a school computer lab and if I leave to look will never get a computer again). But then how are men supposed to lead women if we are all equally fallen?
Posted by: ladyluthien | Oct 24, 2005 8:12:28 AM
[i]I'm pretty sure that God said to Eve that she would desire her husband and he would have dominion over her as a consequence of the fall (can't check because I'm in a school computer lab and if I leave to look will never get a computer again).[/i]
Now, LL, why would you have to leave your computer to check such a thing? Courtesy of an on-line RSV:
Genesis 3:16
To the woman [God] said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
There is no suggestion in the earlier part of this second creation narrative that Adam and Eve, in their unfallen state, ought to obey anyone other than God. It's as if when we lose our original communion with God we inherit a world in which our desire for communion is replaced by a desire for power.
In the first creation narrative (Genesis 1), in which humanity, male and female, is created in God's own image, God blesses men and women and gives them dominion over other creatures but not over each other, saying to them "... fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
Posted by: Jul | Oct 24, 2005 9:40:21 AM
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over...every living thing upon the earth (Gen 1:27-28, KJV)
"And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Gen 2:7)
"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the Garden though mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the garden of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field...and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name therof...but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam...[Woman gets made and then God] brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Gen 2: 15-24)
A few things appear evident from the more detailed account in Genesis 2. (1) The man was given his job for creation before the woman even came on the scene (2) It was recognized that the man, even in his pre-lapsarian state, was not completely adapted to his vocation. He needed a helper suited (meet) for him. In terms of this function, the animals just didn't cut it. (3) So God kindly provided the woman who was perfectly suited for him. (The whole "be fruitful and multiply" command could hardly have succeeded without help in any case :-)
I think the folks who have mentioned that it is sin that accounts for the "desire" and the "rule" of the husband over the wife (not to mention the "pain") certainly have it right. (The desire, the emotional need of the wife for the husband, is probably necessary considering the pain of childbirth.) But the text appears to indicate that, even in the pre-lapsarian condition, the woman is uniquely designed/destined to fulfill the *human* vocation of exercising dominion over the earth *by* helping the man. (If one will allow a personal note: I feel deeply the appropriateness of my wife sending out one of our younger sons with a glass and a pitcher of water when I am pushing the mower around our lawn on a hot day.)
Incidentally, I find it interesting that God apparently relied upon Adam to convey the warning about the tree to Eve (since she wasn't around at the time). He might not have done his job as well as he should have since she told the serpent that both eating and "touching" would lead to death. Or maybe she made that up on the spot? Anyway, Adam was quick to point to his wife as the reason things went wrong (and she, of course, learning her lesson, pointed to the snake). Strange that the snake didn't have an argument that Moses recorded (assuming his authorship).
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 24, 2005 10:51:00 AM
I think the folks who have mentioned that it is sin that accounts for the "desire" and the "rule" of the husband over the wife (not to mention the "pain") certainly have it right.
If I recall correctly, the "desire" here is parallel to the "desire" in the story of Cain ("sin desires to have you, and you must master it"). In other words, a plausible interpretation would be that women are cursed with the desire to control their husbands, but that this desire will be frustrated.
Posted by: holmegm | Oct 24, 2005 1:30:22 PM
So, your reading of Genesis is that it's God's desire that a woman's (pre or post-fall?) "natural tendency" to want to control her husband be remedied by the man's "ruling over" her, and that this activity on his part is not a result of the fall?
Golly, that's a position that's really convenient for a man to take! So just where and how does the fall effect the man? Only in the area of how diffcult it will be to earn a living? Does that mean that men are less in need of redemption than women?
For my part, what I see clearly as a result of the fall is the fracturing and enmity in all human relationships, even the most intimate ones (which are supposed to be based, in the case of marriage at least, on some notion of mutual compatibility).
The fracture has already taken place in both their relationships to God, as each has chosen to listen to others rather than to Him. The divide is furthered by both of their blame-shifting (Adam even dares to blame God! ..."The woman whom Thou gavest me..."). The serpent, as far as I can tell, merely smiles in satisfaction at the devastation he has wrought.
This is the devastation Jesus works to reverse, as mutual love and submission replace the way in which the blame-shifting of men (and women in ultra-feminism) is used to justify their supposedly God-given dominance. We are to reflect the genuine love and mutual submission evident within the interpersonal relations of the Triune God.
These are impulses and observations which easily escape those with a unitary view of God. It's no wonder that strict monotheism, i.e., those who do not share the Biblical view of God's nature as a "plural unity" have such trouble producing anything other than socities which must by led by tyrants. Mutual trust nor even the "sharing of power" are not evidenced by this type of god.
As for the word "helper" being used as a clue to the "support role" rather than to a "co-equal" role in the mandate of Genesis, this is also a cultural anachronism. As evidence, note that the very same word is used of God in relation to us, viz., "The LORD is my Shepherd, a very present help in times of trouble." (Sorry; going from memory; don't have the citation handy).
If I have misunderstood your position, please excuse me. My intent is only to clarify by contrasting the views and their implications.
Cheers!
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 24, 2005 3:13:11 PM
I think it is our sin and messed up (current) society that reads "helper" as inferior or denigrating to the woman. Both are necessary. Neither (alone) is sufficient. But the role is different for each. This is one of the things that Paul is pointing to when he prohibits women from teaching men. Another difference is seen in the fact that a woman, fulfilling her role as a wife, is basically given assurance that she can bring her husband to Christ. No such assurance is given to the husband that fulfilling his role as husband will lead his wife to salvation. I think it's cool, though, that one Christian parent is given hope that his (or her) faithful service as a parent can lead to the redemption of the children.
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 24, 2005 3:30:32 PM
My own reaction tends to be "Thank God I'm single !"
Posted by: Donna Marie Lewis | Oct 24, 2005 6:31:03 PM
Jul, where would I find an online RSV? Circumstances this morning were far from conducive to extensive online searches (Linguistics test in two hours and still needing to study the transformational grammar chapter for the test) Anyway, thank you all for deobfuscating the issue a bit! And now I'm even happy about being single...it's so much less confusing, just obeying my parents is enough... :)
Posted by: ladyluthien | Oct 24, 2005 7:24:12 PM
I was sort of teasing you - sounds like you didn't need any more distractions. I think there are several sites with online RSVs, but I tend to go here:
http://etext.virginia.edu/rsv.browse.html
I never seem to remember it and don't get around to bookmarking it but find it by Googling Revised Standard Version (or RSV, but that's also a medical acronymn). Bible Gateway -http://www.biblegateway.com - is a good site for comparing other translations, but I don't think it has the RSV.
Posted by: Juli | Oct 24, 2005 9:19:48 PM
Were it not for the "teaching of women" to males (children, at least) then Moses would have had little chance in Pharoah's household, King Josiah would not have known the counsel of the Lord (IIChronicles 34:14-28), Timothy would not have been congratulated by Paul for holding fast to the faith nurtured in him by his grandmother and mother (his father was a Gentile unbeliever --Acts 16:1, II Tim. 1:5), nor would Jesus have had much godly influence in His household upon the death of His earthly father at an early age.
And were it not for Jesus instructing the women who came to His tomb, as the first witnesses of the resurrection, to tell the disciples to go to Galilee and wait for Him there, I might be persuaded to agree with your selective argument based upon the one Pauline passage where Paul seems to make a blanket prohibition against women teaching men. But then that's a very context-insensitive interpretation of what Paul was saying in that passage, and ignores the greater portions of the Pauline material which indicate that he did not mean this to be a blanket prohibition --including the refrences to Priscilla and her husband's ministry, and to Junias, a female, as an "apostle!"
Going back a step or two, when Jesus instructs two women to tell the male disciples what to do, --if even in these limited circumstances you must agree --that He asks them to give the men His word, and look for an obedient response based upon their unbelievable news of His resurrection. Once again, God uses the "foolish" things to humble the wise.
There are better cases for these arguments at the Christians for Biblical Equality website --www.cbeinternational.org.
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 24, 2005 9:49:47 PM
Apologies to anyone who has moral compunctions regarding the analogy I'm about to paint, but here goes....
Marriage is like dancing.
It's a bit dangerous to say things like that, not yet being married myself, but I have heard this from people who should know.
I do NOT mean "slow dancing," or some sort of nonsense where each person dances individually. I'm talking about country dancing, swing, salsa, waltz -- dances structured to some degree or other (heavily for line dancing, minimally for swing), and involving a partner.
The man leads. Honestly, it's more fun this way -- for both partners. I've danced with women who back-lead, or worse yet, don't lead but won't trust me to lead either. Often they have a good excuse; many men are incompetent dancers. But the dance really WORKS when the man leads and the woman follows.
I have learned a great deal about being a man, and leading, and serving, through learning to dance -- and I really learned to take the lead (and started to become a passable dancer) when I realized that the lady I was dancing with expected me to do so. The responsibility lay firmly on my shoulders; she was ready to follow and help if I would begin, but she refused to play my role.
I think that's one chief aspect of what male headship actually consists in (continuing the attempt at "deconfustication" -- beautiful word, that). Headship, in this sense, really means responsibility. This is something I have several times observed to young ladies I was teaching to waltz: "Don't worry; if we run into anything, it's my fault." And it is.
Before someone interrupts -- yes, of course women also share in this responsibility. A few weeks ago I was waltzing (can you tell I like old-fashioned dances?) and my partner said she had been taught that a lady should warn the gentleman if there was another couple behind him. She offered not to do so, if I would rather she didn't (I dare to hope that if she had known me better she would not have said that). But I think this is a marvelous analogy. A man NEEDS his wife to give him good counsel, to warn him when he's doing something stupid, etc. If he ignores her, he is an arrogant fool. My only point is that if something DOES go wrong it's his responsibility -- even if he did it on her advice.
Don't mistake me; women are responsible for their own actions before God. But remember also -- I'm going to get burned alive for mentioning this, but O well, it's in the Bible -- that Israelite men could overrule vows their wives had made: I would suggest (granting that I may be altogether wrong, I'm no Old Testament scholar) that this indicates he has some kind of responsibility for what she does, whether he had anything to do with it directly or not. (This is why Adam blaming Eve for his sin is so reprehensible. The fall was ultimately his fault -- see Romans 5.)
Does this mean women have only a passive role, warning men when they're about to do something wrong? NO! A thousand times no! "Following" in the sense it is used in dancing is anything but passive. It is an active thing, a difficult and delicate skill which must be learned, just as leading must. It takes effort -- particularly when the man dances badly. But the key is that the better a man leads, the easier he is to follow. I have it on good authority from several female friends that some older men who have been dancing for many years are so good that their partners need hardly pay attention at all, they simply delight in the dance itself. The same is true the other direction; I once danced with a lady some years older than myself, who was VERY good. She followed so well that I spontaneously led her in two or three variations I had never done before. The first time I thought to myself, "how did I do that?" But it was not just I who did it; we did it, together. The better a woman follows, the more a man is able to do. If she will not let him lead in the most basic steps -- either from stubbornness, unwillingness to trust, or simply not knowing how -- he cannot do the more complex variations, the things that make the dance most enjoyable for her.
Again, there is an element of “mutual submission” -- each takes into account and works with the strengths and weaknesses of the other. If a lady is tired, I spin her more slowly; something similar happens in the reverse. But it is subtly different -- leading the turn, or leaning into it. There are different roles.
How far can you take this analogy? I don't know. It is, like all such comparisons, imperfect. Marriage is manifoldly more complex that dancing. But I think, from my own observation and the witness of others, that it's a fair comparison so far as it goes. Perhaps it will add some interesting aspect to the conversation (I hope).
Grace and Peace.
Posted by: firinnteine | Oct 24, 2005 11:34:08 PM
I seem to have changed "deobfuscating" to "deconfustication" -- oops.
Either way, it's still a lovely word(s). :)
Posted by: firinnteine | Oct 24, 2005 11:35:51 PM
I'm fascinated that this discussion has been summarized as a discussion on women's ordination, rather than a discussion of God's intentions of reversing the effects of the fall.
It's as if the mere mention of the topic causes a whole profession to leap into the argument as an assault on their legitimacy.
I'm also fascinated that my comments have been summarized as "the standard" arguments on egalitarianism, especially since I have done relatively little reading in that area beyond my acquaintance with the Bible.
Let me ask-- what was the source of Moses' ordination? God appeared to him personally, without corroborating witnesses, and told him to "go and tell." Moses' authority and commission did not come by any human "laying on of hands," but directly from God Himself.
Further, notice that that's exactly the circumstances and command given to the two women to whom Christ spoke, in Matthew 28:10, in commissioning them to be the first witnesses of the resurrection, and the first deliverers of Jesus' post-resurrection instructions to the church.
When God wants to ordain someone, He doesn't need human sanctions or counsels to do so.
So, the whole effort to exclude women by means of theological categories is superceded by the direct actions of Jesus.
The other non-sequitur is to confuse God's ordination towards a specific task as a permanent endorsement on that person's subsequent actions. King David shows us otherwise.
Whether egalitarians have every little nuance and implication straight in their explication of the Triune God, the fact is that they're on point in this matter.
Thank you for the nuanced warnings about God as "mother" (see other articles by the original author) and the dangers of misconstruing humanness in a non- or asexual way, but enough with the "deconfustication," already!
It does not threaten the ranks of the "professional" clergy to admit that God can use anything, even a donkey, to speak His words, as He chooses. And that God often goes outside the "official" channels to do so.
There seems to be little debate about the very different and subtle character of mutual submission in the nature of redeemed (patterned on prelapsarian) relationships. Can't we be agreed on the goal, and ask discerningly how our interpretations are serving that goal?
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 25, 2005 2:04:03 AM
I'm fascinated that this discussion has been summarized by an editor as a discussion on women's ordination, rather than a discussion of God's intentions of reversing the effects of the fall.
It's as if the mere mention of the topic causes a whole profession to leap into the argument as an assault on their legitimacy.
I'm also fascinated that my comments have been summarized as "the standard" arguments on egalitarianism, especially since I have done relatively little reading in that area beyond my acquaintance with the Bible.
Let me ask-- what was the source of Moses' ordination? God appeared to him personally, without corroborating witnesses, and told him to "go and tell." Moses' authority and commission did not come by any human "laying on of hands," but directly from God Himself. Lest we forget, Moses' credentials up to this point were hardly stellar.
Further, notice that that's exactly the circumstances and command given to the two women to whom Christ spoke, in Matthew 28:10, in commissioning them to be the first witnesses of the resurrection, and the first deliverers of Jesus' post-resurrection instructions to the church.
When God wants to ordain someone, He doesn't need human sanctions or counsels to do so.
So, the whole effort to exclude women by means of theological categories is superceded by the direct actions of Jesus. Biblically, there are several other instances when God ordains women in this way.
The other non-sequitur is to confuse God's ordination towards a specific task as a permanent endorsement on that person's subsequent actions. King David shows us otherwise. So do the current headlines on clergy abuse.
Whether egalitarians have every little nuance and implication straight in their explication of the Triune God, the fact is that they're on point in this matter.
Thank you for the nuanced warnings about thinking of God as "mother" (see other articles by the original author) and the dangers of misconstruing humanness in a non- or asexual way, but enough with the "deconfustication," already! Acceptance of women's ordination (which exists whether the church officially recognizes it or not, if it's at God's request) is not the real issue here.
There seems to be little debate about the very different and subtle character of mutual submission in the nature of redeemed (restored to prelapsarian and patterned in the Triune God and the mystery of Christ's marriage union with the church) relationships. Can't we be agreed on the goal, and ask discerningly how our interpretations are serving that goal?
Men and womeon are definitely different, but are not inherently superior or inferior to each other, being co-equal, reflecting as they do only a portion of God's full nature, and so needing gregarious male and female contact and expression to more fully reflect and experience it.
Redeemed in Christ, males and females (and not just in the marriage relationship) can enjoy more and more fully the kind of relationships God intended from the beginning, as we are perfected in love towards each other.
The pattern for this transformation is patently evident in the life of Paul, the patriarchal Pharisee turned "fool for Christ."
It does not threaten the ranks of the "professional" clergy to admit that God can use anything, even a donkey, to speak His words, as He chooses. And that God often goes outside the "official" channels to do so.
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 25, 2005 2:33:16 AM
It's as if the mere mention of the topic causes a whole profession to leap into the argument as an assault on their legitimacy.
And that's where the "flustered" part comes in ... pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Posted by: Juli | Oct 25, 2005 7:59:28 AM
>The man leads. Honestly, it's more fun this way ->for both partners. I've danced with women who >back-lead, or worse yet, don't lead but won't >trust me to lead either. Often they have a good >excuse; many men are incompetent dancers. But >the dance really WORKS when the man leads and >the woman follows.
Lousy analogy for your point, as in dancing it doesn't matter who leads, as long as somebody does...and as long as the other partner accepts the leadership...(A woman can front-lead, you know...)
Posted by: Donna Marie Lewis | Oct 25, 2005 8:43:17 AM
I'm not entirely sure what Mr. Coe is talking about women's ordination and I've been through this thread several times. I have checked out some of the CBE website that he recommends and I find it, frankly, a bit odd. They put a lot of stock in words like "equality" and "egalitarian" when the Bible, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't have any appreciable focus on those concepts. Equality, as I think either CSL or GKC noted, was medicine, not food. As such, equality cannot be what one needs if he wants to achieve the "prelapsarian" condition. I think that the attempt to do so is, in any case, misguided. We aren't going backward to what existed at the Garden of Eden, we're going forward to the Kingdom of God (on Earth) under our Lord Jesus. It's going to be much *better* than Eden when He's our King. The gentle folks at the CBE also seem to be ignoring several notable passages about male headship within the family and authority (teaching and otherwise) as well as putting a rather eccentric gloss on others--a gloss that I don't think the text can bear. In general, they seem to be trying to fit the Bible into a particular late 20th century philosophical/ political mold. That is, they seem to have laid the Word of God on a procrustean bed and performed their beneficent surgery on the parts that they find uncongenial (and perhaps not respectable). If it is any consolation, I thought much like they did about 20 years ago, so I think I know where they are coming from. Marriage, six children (with one more on the way), and humbly reading and re-reading the Word of God has relieved me of the delusion of a sterile "equality" between men and women and shown me something far more wonderful.
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 25, 2005 9:07:13 AM
Interesting how we go from Jesus commissioning the women at the tomb to carry the news of His resurrection back to the disciples to a full-blown mandate for women's ordination...
Posted by: Jenna | Oct 25, 2005 10:38:33 AM
What other Biblical mandate is there for today's tradition-bound pattern of ordination?
In the New Testament, the laying on of hands signified something more like a confirmation of a gifting and perhaps a calling (II Tim. 1:6), not the conferral of a permanent office (the appointment to a permanent role, invested with longstanding authority and deserving of deferential obedience).
If the history of God's revelation shows that, despite the overwhelming denial of women being formally instructed in the Word, nevertheless God has chosen them for His "ordained" (appointed for a task by one with the authority to do so) ministers on numerous occasions throughout the Scriptures, then we are in gross violation of God's desires if we selectively choose to exclude women by virtue of their gender alone (or, for that matter, their formal theological training!).
And what's "full-blown" ordination? Didn't I already mention that it's fairly rare for any ordained person in the Scriptures to carry out their mandate without error over a long period?
If the claim to ordination is a claim to permanent faultlessness, that's not a Biblical argument.
The "organic" forms of the local church in Biblical times made it less likely that such error would go undetected and unmitigated.
Remember, however, this was not the original discussion thread on this article. Rather, the discussion was on "the quirky idea of male headship" in marriage, with very little attention being paid to the situation of single women (doesn't that feel familiar --my sympathies to all you "poor women" out there with no "head!").
I guess when the Bible says that there is only one mediator between God and man, i.e., the Lord Jesus, that what it means, more specifically, is that Jesus only mediates between God and those of the male gender?
So, all you single women out there, be sure to get off to your local male priest, and tell him all your secret wishes and prayer requests, so that He can go ask Jesus on your behalf. Oy, vey!
It's awfully hard to carry on a personal relationship with Jesus by these means.
I'm not sure I like the word "equality" either, which is why I gravitate more to the word "mutuality," which CBE uses use in their newsletter.
In describing our equal standing before God, with full access for every man, woman and child through Christ alone (yes, and with the assistance of God's minstering people also), "equality" hits the nail on the head.
But in practice, God asks us to be willing to "die" for each other, as Jesus exampled for us. We must be willing to put the interests of others before our own, and not abuse our gifts to further our own cause only, but to demonstrate the kind of self-giving and even sacrificial love which Jesus did --rather than "insisting on our rights as equals."
I realize this is all very messy and poorly-delineated, but that's exactly what makes it life in the Spirit! We have no automatic "legal" recourse to fall back on to justify any and every one of our actions. We must be constantly evaluating the effects of our actions on others. This is the sensitivity to the Spirit which God desires.
In case this doesn't seem like freedom, though, remember, because of Christ's redemption, we are "free to make mistakes" --as long as we are just as free to apologize for them, and forgive others for theirs. We don't have to be "right" all the time. Many times, doing what's "right" gets in the way of doing what's good.
Okay, here come the rants about antinomianism. God's law still stands, and is very real. But we have the means of grace now, in Christ, to not feel compelled to defend our own self-righteousness. We can admit when we're guilty, ask for and recieve forgiveness, and try to do better the next time.
I'm sorry the last post got posted twice; it was my fault during a revision of the final copy. And I'm sorry if I've demonstrated anything less the the Spirit of Christ during these posts.
I appreciate your prayers and thoughful comments. And for all you single women out there, don't let this shake your faith in your Lord! He is the defender of your cause. Be patient and pray for His Word to triumph. Ask how your current circle of friends in the faith support you fully as a woman of God.
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 25, 2005 2:47:28 PM
I'm curious what Mr. Coe thinks of Stephen Hutchens' article from several years ago (in Touchstone). It was a response to a seminary professor who advocated egalitarianism in the church and can be found here: http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-01-046-f
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 25, 2005 4:33:10 PM
Gene-- I'll try to look at it tomorrow; I'm working tonight and am just on a quick lunch break. I look forward to hearing his arguments.
Blessings, Guy
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 25, 2005 10:10:47 PM
Gene--
I'll try to comment soon. I'm in the middle of a work week!
Briefly, so far-- I see way too much of an attempt to build a straw man in this article. The author does not seem to be aware of the finely nuanced views of evangelical feminists, who do NOT blithely go about saying that "God is as much Mother as Father."
Evangelical feminists hold to a very high view of Scripture, and are not of the mindset to "make the Scriptures fit their preconceptions."
Rather, their quest is to understand the Biblical text as a unitive and integrated whole. Where there appear to be contradictions, they strive to understand how their interpretations are deficient. Because God does not contradict Himself.
I went to the CBE website and used their search engine, looking for the phrase "as much Mother" and was unable to find anything in the way of damning evidence for a wholesale revision of the Bible's inspired choice of the word "Father" in revealing God to us.
What I did find was much in the way of warning about thereby concluding that God was male.
Here's a quote from an excellent article (http://www.cbeinternational.org/new/free_articles/sexuality_spirituality.shtml) by Rebecca Merrill Groothius:
"Any effort to invoke a feminine image of God in order to balance out God's perceived masculinity only reinforces the traditional and feminist error of sexualizing the nature of God. The entire project is based on a failure to grasp the biblical truth that because God is not a sexual being, the attributes of sexuality are not relevant to an understanding of God's nature. I believe that virtually every false theology of gender–whether in the feminist or the traditionalist direction–arises out of the failure to recognize that the nature of sexuality is not spiritual, and the nature of spirituality is not sexual...The belief that women's spirituality is grounded in their female sexuality, and hence is fundamentally different from men's spirituality, is one of the several faulty premises of radical feminist theology."
This is not an indication of an androgenous God, it is an affirmation of a marvelously immanent and yet transcendent God, Whose full nature defies description by singular human categories.
I do think it's worth pointing out that Jesus deliberately used a diminutive and uncommon form of the word "Father" in describing God, namely the Aramaic "Abba" --"Papa" or "Daddy," a term of great intimacy and affectionate respect which the Latin "Pater" seems strangely incapable of conveying (to me, at least). It's one of those "smile when you say it" words, a term of endearment.
I'll try to engage more with the article in a later post. I do think the author is right to point out that using a merely reflexive logic is dangerous and inadequate when plumbing the mystery of the Triune God. Better that we rely on God's revelation of Himself, and proceed only with great caution in our attempts to understand.
For while God is our Abba, He's also an all-consuming fire!
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 26, 2005 7:16:58 AM
I don't know that Hutchens is building a straw man as much as replying to an argument (and a worldview) that was articulated by Dr. Padgett in the accompanying article in that issue of Touchstone (which you might want to check out as well since it apparently was posted--at one time--on the CBE website):
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-01-041-f
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 26, 2005 7:54:56 AM
Reading Mr. Coe's latest post, I am wondering if Rebecca Groothius is wandering into gnostic territory with the assertion that "the nature of spirituality is not sexual and the nature of sexuality is not spiritual". If one believes (as I do) that Jesus is God and Jesus is a man, then God IS a being with (male) sex. Am I missing something? I don't think Christians should be stuck with the (pagan) distinction that what is spiritual can't be physical as well. The Resurrection seems to destroy this notion, in any case, as does Paul's talk of a "spiritual body", an oxymoron in today's spiritual parlance. In the piece I mentioned above, Steve Hutchens helpfully notes that "man" includes "woman" (though the converse is not true) and in this he appears to be following Paul in 1st Corinthians 11: 8-12 "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man... Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God." This strikes me as an exceptionally sane reflection (as if Paul needs my commendation, eh? :-)
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 26, 2005 10:39:17 AM
I wondered myself about that statement, and suspended judgment on it until I reread the whole passage.
What emerged clearly (to me) was that while her thesis was possibly worded poorly, it meant something like "our spiritual nature is not defined by our sexuality --men and women don't have a fundamentally different spirituality."
There are perhaps different emphases which arise naturally out of the myopia that comes from being of only one gender, and the solution to that, is of course, to pay attention to those characteristics which inhere in God's nature towards which we are ill-equipped to appreciate and emulate without the assistance of Scripture and the insights of the complementary gender.
It's also interesting that you cite Paul in I Cor. 11:8-12, for it is precisely here that we find him noting his old, patriarchal convictions and then refuting them with the new revelation given to him in Christ.
In other words, Paul is arguing here against the importance he attached to the view which he used to hold to bolster his prejudices against women (which led him to thank God daily in prayer that he was not a woman).
He is agreeing with the Lord that women can and should be recognized as of equal status with men, since while it's true that the first woman proceeded from the first man, it's also true that every man since has proceeded from a woman, including the God-man. So, the argument is moot.
Now, about the word "equal." I agree that the word is hardly the unambiguous term I'd prefer. But, as I mentioned before, it does hit some things on the head.
To the degree, however, that it can lead to the confusion that men and women are NOT very different, it has limited value.
I prefer to say that though men and women are very different, Christ helps them transcend their differences and find a common unity in mutuality and gregarious friendship across gender lines. Or something like that...
Of course Jesus was a man. It is not, however, proper to leap from that to the conclusion that God is male. Or are you demanding that, in order to clear up the potential confusion caused by His appearing as a male, that He should instead have appeared as a hermaphrodite?
Even if He had, that would have been confusing too, for God is not a hermaphrodite. God is not sexual --He encompasses all that it is to be male and female, and to try to envision Him as a sexual being of any type is a fallacy (or worse --Deuteronomy 4:15-20). As Creator, God cannot be defined by any created category.
In calling God "Father," we acknowledge the very kinds of things God did for Israel in the Exodus from Egypt, delivering them militarily and giving them an inheritance. In calling God "El Shaddai," for example, we acknowledge the sustenance that flows to us from Him that's akin to the milk that flows from a mother's breast to her child.
These metaphors tell us much about the Creator Who ultimately is beyond description in His entirety, but Who certainly is not limited to being male. We need our women to experience and understand Him more fully!
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 26, 2005 1:25:54 PM
In the piece I mentioned above, Steve Hutchens helpfully notes that "man" includes "woman" (though the converse is not true)
Such pronouncements almost seem like attempts to deny our common experience that in fact women *do* include and contain men; men are born of women, as are women, and even human embryos "start out female" (to put it in oversimplied terms). Insisting that men are the source of women reminds me of the story of Athena's springing from her father's head - a bit of wish fulfillment from a male pov.
One of the above-linked essays quaintly references the Aristotelian notion that women are "more like the raw material on which form is
imposed" (by - you guessed it - men!). Harking back to the Adam and Eve narrative, it seems that if dust was the raw material for Adam, Adam was the raw material for Eve (or, as one bumper sticker quips, a rough draft).
Posted by: Juli | Oct 26, 2005 2:41:57 PM
Of course Jesus was a man. It is not, however, proper to leap from that to the conclusion that God is male. Or are you demanding that, in order to clear up the potential confusion caused by His appearing as a male, that He should instead have appeared as a hermaphrodite?
Jesus did not "appear" as a man (that would be the heresy of Docetism), he was and is a man (male).
I think Mr. Hutchens put it best when he said "those who detect motherly qualities in God are not incorrect, but they are mistaken in calling him Mother, for it is in his Fatherhood that this character is found, and we have not been told by our Lord that he is Mother, but Father. It is wrong to find the character of God in an apophasis in which God is neither male nor female, or in a corruption of human sexuality in which he is both. The Scriptures teach us that all he is, is Father. They present us with no maternal Person in God, no female hypostasis that has a name, that we can worship, to whom we can pray, or of whom we may say that She, like the Son and the Holy Spirit, is One with the Father. This makes it impossible to say that God “is as much Mother as Father,” or as much (in keeping with a spurious apophatic principle that generates only metaphors for God) female as male."
Human embryo's "start out female"? For your statement to be true males would have to be fully female before becoming male. To start from something common and then branch off from that common state before an end product is reached does not imply that you started from the end product.
Posted by: George | Oct 26, 2005 4:42:13 PM
My dear Juli, the idea did not originate with me. St. Paul notes that the man was "formed first" (eplasthe protos), leaving cardinality or ordinality unspecified.
There is, in scripture, a "firstness" in the male which the woman does not share, its Greatest Woman being feminism's, or egalitarianism's if you wish, greatest enemy ("ecce ancilla Domini"), whose Son, coming from her and after her, like David's Son and John the Baptist's Lord, was her Lord because he was before her. The firstness of the male, a firstness which Paul attributes to maleness in general and to Christ the Arche and proto-male, the Firstborn of all creation, out of which the woman's subjection arises, is unmistakeably like that of the Son and Spirit to the Father. This is all one elaborate tapestry, a single unrelenting theme, whose main line was succinctly elaborated in Paul's observation about the man being the head of the woman, Christ being the head of the man, and God being the head of Christ. A good many people have a very hard time getting their minds around this. They triumphantly grasp a thread of equality or two--and they are indeed part of the tapestry--but that is as far as they are able to go, for they have refused at the outset to recognize the fountain of both divinity and humanity, God, who is our Father. Not like a father, but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the man who is in turn the head of the woman, all of which are relationships of subordination and obedience, founded in love.
But it is not only those of orthodox gifts and persuasion who have been able to grasp this. A good many enemies of traditional Christianity have too, for the same reason the devils believe and tremble. This is why the people I consider the real feminists--those who actually understand the ends of egalitarianism, and what they are about--gave up long ago attempting to reform St. Paul, for to do this they found they would have to turn the entire Bible on its head. Realizing the hopelessness of trying to fix Christianity, a patriarchal religion through and through, they have left the church--unless, like Rosemary Reuther, they cynically stay around because some gullible church provides them with the office equipment they need to continue with their work of vandalizing it.
Perhaps the strangest thing we Touchstone writers are encountering in postings like this is the notion that the myriad clever little observations our interlocutors present to confound us were things that never occurred to us before we sat down and wrote our essays.
Posted by: Steve Hutchens | Oct 26, 2005 5:31:24 PM
One day, Eve decided to speak to God. "Lord, I'm lonely" she said.
"Hmmmn... I could make you a companion."
"Sounds great!"
"Well, what I have in mind will have good and bad points. He'll be handsome, and able to satisfy you in ways you'll really enjoy. But, he'll be a little smelly and always want to be the winner at whatever game he plays."
"I guess I can live with that" said Eve, wistfully.
"There's one more thing" said God. "You know how I said he'll want to win at everything? We'll have to persuade him that I made him first."
"Will he actually believe it?" asked Eve.
"Sure! But it'll have to be our little secret" said God. "You know --Woman to woman?"
I can feel the blood pressure rising out there, guys! Before you accuse me of heresy, let me point out that I like to tell this JOKE for two reasons.
First, because it turns the tables on the whole creation account, and lets men feel what it feels like to some women when it's construed in a way that makes woman a private joke between Adam and (the supposedly male) God.
Secondly, because it points out the absurdity of assigning a gender to God. That would only have increased the enmity between men and women, if anything, after the fall.
The definitive self-revelation of God is genderless. "I am that I am" says God to Moses. Later metaphors describe aspects of God using gendered images, but always with the cautions and insights of Genesis chapter one in mind (not to mention verses like Deut. 3:15-20).
Jul-- hang in there! The "man behind the curtain" isn't the one you're interested in anyway. Yes, men are "rough drafts" --but then, so are we all!
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 26, 2005 6:32:23 PM
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the (eminently Kantian) assumption that gender=sex, i.e. that the only difference between men and women is purely material/biological. This seems to make a dangerous divorce between the physical and spiritual; as if a human person is complete simply as a non-bodied entity. While some Greek philosophers would have been comfortable with this concept, I think it safe to say that most of the human authors of Scripture would not. The Jewish understanding of the person does not, it seems to me, allow for this clear-cut set of distinctions (OT scholars, please correct me if I am in error on this, I haven't had the opportunity to learn Hebrew yet).
This is one version of the argument 1) The physical and non-physical are different things, and may be thought of separately. 2) Personhood inheres in whatever aspect of us is non-physical. 3) Sex is biological. 4) Personhood is un-sexed.
Somewhere in here, someone got the bright idea of equating "sex" and "gender" (which is by no means mandated by the grammar), and presto, we're off and running.
If you're wondering where Kant comes in, I'm referring to the assigning of personhood to pure rationality -- which, since it is a category deliberately contrived to exclude any implications of humanness-as-such altogether, also neatly avoids any differences which may appear between male and female, or masculine and feminine.
While Christianity may not categorically disallow this view, it certainly does not require it. Charles Williams (I call him "the other Inkling") wrote the following:
"The fact of death, and the ensuing separation of 'body' and 'soul,' lead us to consider them too much as separate identities conjoined. But I hope it is not unorthodox to say that body and soul are one identity, and that all our inevitable but unfortunate verbal distinctions are therefore something less than true. Death has been regarded by the Christian church as an outrage--a necessary outrage, perhaps, but still an outrage. It has been held to be an improper and grotesque schism in a single identity...."
This is not the only possible view; but I can easily imagine St. Thomas or Solomon saying much the same thing.
But if that is the case, our "spiritual" reality would be -- not sexed (that is in English a physical categorization), but gendered. When God made us "male" and "female," it is possible -- I cannot say for sure, but it is possible -- that this meant not just a differentiation of physical sex, but a distinction in more-than-merely-physical gender. (Does anyone know if Hebrew has this distinction? If my argument is correct I would rather expect there to be a single word for both concepts, if indeed they are separable concepts at all to the Hebrew mind.)
I don't think we want to say that God only represents the masculine gender; whatever our "personhood" consists in seems to be derived from our being made in the image of God, distinctively feminine as well as distinctively masculine traits. But there does seem to be a Scriptural tendency, too strong to entirely discount, toward figuring God always in terms of the masculine, whenever such abstract concepts are invoked (it should be noted that pronouns are, in English, defined as "masculine" and "feminine," NOT "male" and "female" -- again, if there is any distinction.)
God Himself became a man -- male, masculine -- and remains so in resurrected glory. When we "see Him as He is" we shall see a man. We shall also see God. If it is right to say our spiritual and physical are really an integral unity, how much more must it be so of Christ? (Williams makes this point also.)
God the Father is not, physically speaking, male; He has no body. God the Son is male, in every sense of the term. But we know that the Son calls the Father by that name, indicating a certain kind of relationship.
Whatever the case, so long as we are embodied -- and we are now, and shall be again after death, at the resurrection of the dead -- we relate to God as males and females. God does not love the one more than the other; there is no partiality with God. But there is a difference.
"Equal" does not equate to "Same," physically or spiritually.
Posted by: firinnteine | Oct 26, 2005 7:19:06 PM
Juli,How do human embryos all start out female? isn't sex genetically determined at conception (unless you're Aristotle, in which case we all started out male and all baby girls essentialy are boys with birth defects)? Not that men, particularly those inclined to think that being male makes them specialer than we are don't need a forcible eminder every so often that without us females there would be no human males. And would they really be male if their were no female in contrast? And thank you for the RSV link. I always need more distraction!(this is so much more fun than term papers...)
Firinnteine, Your dancing analogy was much appreciated and as far as a totally unattached spinster can tell probably quite apt (if I fugure out the truth I'll let you know!). Dancing with men who need to be led is no fun at all, and is only marginally better than being dragged around for the duration of a waltz by a younger but taller sister! And now for opening a whole new can of worms. Does women not being supposed to teach men apply only in church or in school/university settings where secular subject matter is being taught as well? E.g, must I stop teaching a friend Greek because I'm a girl and he very much isn't? And what about all of the female profs. with men in their classes??
Posted by: ladyluthien | Oct 26, 2005 9:59:08 PM
In response to Lady Luthien, I'm pretty sure from the context that Paul meant that women weren't supposed to teach men *in the Church*, that is they weren't supposed to hold a teaching office. Both sexes have a duty to teach children, especially their own. I would argue, though, that, after a certain age (puberty) boys in the church should be taught principally by men. I believe this for reasons that I think are both prudential and Biblical.
However, in secular fields, I don't think this holds at all. My dissertation advisor and one of my postdoctoral mentor were both women as were most of my teachers up until college. Seeing as both these women were training me in (molecular and cellular) biology, I can also address the developmental question with some degree of authority: the embryo develops and differentiates as a result of its genetic programming, which is set after the parents' gametes (the sperm and egg) meet and recombine. If the baby has two X chromosomes, it will normally differentiate into a girl. If it has an X and a Y, it will become a boy. (There are cases where an XY person is phenotypically--in most ways--female because of defects in hormonal signalling.) Testosterone is the primary mediator of male differentiation. The boy baby experiences a transient elevation in the womb and another such elevation soon after birth. This sets him up for puberty later on and results in the development of the sex organs and all the other things that make us men such stubborn, strutting (and at times, silly) creatures. This is trivia, but women and prepubescent children (of both sexes) maintain a circulating testosterone level of 30-50 milligrams (mg) per deciliter (dl) of blood while the average man has a circulating testosterone level of 500-700 mg/dl. This level of drug is what makes men think, in any risky situation at which women and other rational creatures would quail, "I might *not* die." I live with six of these addled beings, in addition to having to live with myself, so I know how this works...
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 27, 2005 9:07:12 AM
Mr. Coe writes: "In other words, Paul is arguing here against the importance he attached to the view which he used to hold to bolster his prejudices against women (which led him to thank God daily in prayer that he was not a woman)."
I realize that you may be joking here--it's difficult to tell in this medium--but if you aren't, you really are slandering Paul. In Jesus' parable in Luke 18, the Pharisee makes no comment about gender at all. He isn't glad he isn't a woman. He's glad because he isn't an extortioner, unjust, an adulterer, or a publican. So you're changing the words of this pharisee--who may have been purely exemplary--and then putting these changed words in the mouth of Paul simply because he was a pharisee? Sir, this is not just. The Jews in the 1st century had a much greater respect for women than did any of the surrounding cultures, certainly more than the Romans or the Greeks.
What "prejudices" did Saul (or Paul) have against women that you can discern from the Bible? And, if you produce any, how precisely are you prepared to correct him? (And with what authority do you do so? :-)
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 27, 2005 9:35:13 AM
One itty-bitty correction to my above posting on testosterone levels: I was only off by three orders of magnitude: the "milligram" units should be changed to "nanogram". Sorry, that's what working from memory will get you.
Posted by: Gene Godbold | Oct 27, 2005 9:56:30 AM
Another thing we find in conversations like this is that eventually those who oppose what the Touchstone editors believe on this subject at length let the other shoe drop and say things like, "The definitive self-revelation of God is genderless."
I hope contributors like Juli will begin to grasp the implication of what is being said here by a writer who is presenting himself in this discussion as a Christian, and begin to see, with his assistance, that the position from which he writes has nothing to do with Christianity.
Christians believe, and have always believed, that the "definitive self-revelation of God" is a man, and on the authority of their Master relate the "I AM" passages to him. It is this understanding of Christ that is the defining heart of Christian monotheism, and the greatest of scandals not only to Jews and Muslims, but consistent egalitarians as well.
Posted by: Steve Hutchens | Oct 27, 2005 4:20:57 PM
The daily prayer of a Pharisee, called the "berakoth," was intoned upon leaving a place of study, and it went, in part, like this: "I give thanks to Thee, O Lord my God, that Thou hast not made me a Gentile, a slave, or a woman."
Paul, a "Pharisee among Pharisees," used to sincerely pray with this attitude. It was his shocking encounter with and the teaching of Jesus Christ which led him to succinctly pen this prayer's complete antithesis in Galatians 3:28 --"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Paul's former life and attitudes as a Pharisee were radically changed by Jesus. Perhaps you remember all the arguments Jesus had with all the hard-hearted Pharisees in the Gospels?
The thing about the Pharisess was, they knew their Bibles, i.e., the words, really well. But Jesus chided them for not understanding what the words meant and what they pointed to.
Just like the "Touchstone editors" who seem to feel as though they're able to pronounce on whether or not I'm a Christian, having never met me or interviewed me at any length, the Pharisees "knew" that Jesus simply couldn't be the Messiah --He didn't fit their preconceptions. Paul, among others, was ready to kill Him for it, along with anyone who followed Him.
As for the "gnder"of God, perhaps it will clarify my remark that "od is not male" by adding that God is not male ONLY.
Of course, having been created in God's image, as we are, male and female, the obvious truth is that God is NOT male only, but "male and female."
The great lengths which many Touchstone contributors go to to try to refute the notion that God is "just as much female as male" is rather amusing.
I don't find any statistical studies in the Scriptures which give the exact percentages God is of each gender. All I know is that God is "male and female" --i.e., God encompasses all that it is to be male and female.
That's what I mean by "genderless" --not merely one gender or another. God exhibits maleness and femaleness --and so much more!
Thus, our unity in God does not mean being subsumed under a male rubric only, as though a woman's essential nature was foreign to God or "less than" a male's.
All the fussing about Jesus being male --which He is, and remains --and about the Father being (mostly? exclusively? what percentage?) male by virtue of the term "Father" still misses the mark by ignoring the feminine aspects of the Holy Spirit, not to mention those of the Father (El Shaddai, for example, refers to the "breasts" of God).
When Jesus gives parables like the woman who's lost her coin and uses that woman to speak to us about God's love and search for us, you can't be too rigid about these things.
I most definitely am a Christian --Jesus is Lord!
Posted by: Guy Coe | Oct 27, 2005 6:14:00 PM
