Home > Article Index > The “She” in My Pocket

The “She” in My Pocket

by Marg Herder

It was the first time I had seen her since her ordination, ten years before. My partner and I were on vacation, and I had summoned the courage to call and suggest a short visit. We arrived at her apartment after dark. She welcomed us warmly and showed us around before we sat down in her living room to chat.

She was my first lover. We had grown up in the church. From little tiny clouds of spirit singing in the choirs together we had grown into strong young women working to manifest the Divine in our lives.

In high school I had been transformed by our relationship. It didn’t matter to me that the love I felt meant I was gay. It was poetic, powerful, and so utterly beautiful that it made complete sense to rearrange my perception of my own identity and allow my expectations for the future to change. I was a lesbian, and that was that.

It was different for her. She dreamed of being a minister and had walked steadily down that path all her life. She felt it too, the knowledge, the irresistible understanding of how she must love, but she could not see herself as a lesbian. She wasn’t ready to surrender to it or give up the future she envisioned. In the early eighties, in our world, it was inconceivable that one could be a lesbian and a minister both.

So now we sat in her living room and chatted about our lives, our work, our happiness and disappointments. And then it happened. In the course of the conversation she calmly and casually referred to God as She. No pause, no hint of discomfort, just said in passing. My awareness stuck right there, in that moment. She.

I stopped listening for a second and held that word, She, out in front of me. I held it by the tip of the h, in my thumb and forefinger, right at eye level. It balanced nicely on the h and just kind of swayed back and forth. She. And then quickly I shoved it in my pocket and brought my attention back to the conversation.

We talked for a couple hours and then said our good-byes. My partner and I continued on with our vacation, my first lover continued on with her life. On the way back to the hotel, in the car, I glanced at the She in my pocket. I realized I was uncomfortable with it.

Somewhere along the line I had gotten a clear message that it was wrong to refer to God as She. It was some kind of Really Bad Thing.

Still, I carried that She around with me. As time went on I took it out more and more frequently to study.

I got over the Really Bad Thing part pretty quickly. Being gay helps with that. Once you identify the Really Bad Thing feeling, you can figure out where it comes from and let it go.  I got stuck in the logical arguments for quite a while. God is not male or female. So referring to God as She is just as ridiculous as referring to God as He. I eventually realized that logical considerations don’t really belong in matters of spirituality. Matters of spirituality are matters of the heart.

And I’ll be damned, that She felt so good when I held it pressed over my heart. It felt warm and comforting. It felt safe. That She sure felt like love. It felt like it belonged there. So I started keeping it right next to my heart.

Over time She became a part of my everyday awareness. She became part of my language. And gradually, She became something I understood, as I understood myself. In the process God became something like me, something OF me, not something entirely different.  I have never believed that men were better than women. As someone who carries the awareness and expression of both genders, I realize there exists no real duality, just many different expressions of the same humanity.

I have never believed that my life had to be lived a certain way because I was female. And for this I offer my thanks to many of you who came before me. You know who you are, and I hope you know what you did, both in my life and in the broader social construct.

Throughout my life, I have advocated for the rights of women, supported groups embracing feminist principles, and tried to help other women understand their power and capabilities. Other people have used the word feminist to describe me for years.
But to my way of thinking, it wasn’t until I finally wrapped my heart around that She, that I finally understood what it is to be a feminist. 

A companion piece to this article is available on David Marks’ blog “God is Not a Guy.” 
Click here to read Marg’s guest post, “The Power of an Unexpected Pronoun.”

Marg Herder is a writer, photographer and sound artist living with her partner, Lisa DeWeese, in Indianapolis.  She loves to create and capture beauty with machines, almost as much as she loves backpacking in the Charles C. Deam Wilderness.  Her parents made her very happy by starting the first support group for parents and other allies of LGBT people at their church.  More of her work is available at www.margherder.com.

© 2009 by Evangelical & Ecumenical Women’s Caucus. Spring (April – June) 2009 issue of Christian Feminism Today, Volume 33, Number 1.

(With responses by Melanie Springer Mock and Letha Dawson Scanzoni)

As a young athletic girl I knew how to throw a ball. Hours spent in our backyard tossing a baseball (which I preferred to a softball) onto our pitch-back produced a pretty decent arm for my small frame. I took great pride in being able to lob a basketball from one end of the court to another; or to lead a football receiver so that he (because I only played football with boys) didn’t miss a stride while catching my tightly-spiraled pass; or to dart out of my catcher’s stance to throw out a runner at second base.

And while learning to throw with precision and force were positive results for my participation in various sports I also know that part of this early athletic ability included a clear negative image that has stayed with me as an adult. The primary refrain I heard as a young girl learning to use my arm was that I needed to avoid at all costs “throwing like a girl.” Heck, I remember teaching my younger sister that if she wanted to succeed in sports, she would have to quit playing like a girl and instead be strong like a boy.

A current television ad reminds me of the explicit female negativity I absorbed when I was younger. A father and son are playing catch next to the family’s reliable four-door sedan, something the boy will be proud of later in his life in direct contrast to the embarrassment he is sure to feel because his father by his pronounced awkward ball-throwing is not teaching him how to throw well. In fact, the implied message that runs through my head and I imagine many others is: “wow; he is bad; he is throwing like a girl.”

Multiplied over the course of a lifetime, it is easy to see how our culture reinforces male preference at the same time it methodically undermines any sense of well-being and confidence a woman works to cultivate. Our exclusive language continues to make women invisible and in some cases our derogatory language aimed at women reinforces an insidious sexism that is more difficult to expunge than the more easily located, explicit variety. Adding to this difficulty is our deep resistance to embrace feminine language and images for the divine. This rejection goes far beyond traditional theology and instead reveals a deeper-seated misogyny we are loathe to address much less examine.

Women are made invisible by our language giving preference to men: freshmen, policemen, chairmen. Recently as I listened to NPR during my commute I heard Cokie Roberts mention Diane Feinstein referring to her as a committee “chairman” a common occurrence reinforcing the primacy of male leaders. Many people dismiss critiques like this as unimportant and not worth our attentiveness to language. Yet, we begin to uncover the depths of our sexism if we substitute “women” for “men” in these cases. If Cokie referred to a male representative as a “chairwoman,” she would be corrected immediately. It seems to assume women are included in male categories is a positive thing but the reversal—to see men included in a female category—is entirely unacceptable. We would do well to discover the reasons for this stark difference.

Yet, I’m not just talking about language that contributes to female absence. What about terminology that specifically denigrates women through negatively-charged terms? Last year, for example, former Pennsylvania Governor, Ed Rendell, published a book, one I would probably find much to like except that I will not read it because of its title: A Nation of Wusses: How America’s Leaders Lost the Guts to Make Us Great. I imagine Governor Rendell did not intend to do harm to women by his use of a term that has linguistic connections to the terms “wimp” and “puss” or “pussy.” Yet, this is exactly the problem. There is a pervasive and repetitive mantra reverberating throughout our society each and every day giving preference to men while at the same time not only dismissing women but also devaluing them.

Churches, theologians, and biblical scholars have probably contributed the most to this problem by their insistence upon a male deity and masculine language for God. And while many have done much to rectify this problem, including our own Jann Aldredge-Clanton, the dominant view of God-as-masculine has worked wonders in keeping women under the thumb of a “maled” church. (An interesting note on Microsoft Word and its gendered notion of God: the grammar check highlights “Her” as incorrect while indicating “Him” or “He” as acceptable.)

But a new day is dawning (at least I hope it is!). I see new signs in many places including not only eewc.com but also as students tell me about their willingness to explore the feminine and in the use of labyrinths in schools and hospitals and churches and in the work of those committed to interfaith dialogue who understand the importance of the divine feminine in all of the world’s enduring traditions.

Several weeks ago I was in Wales and England while they were celebrating Mothering Day, their version of Mother’s Day. I was struck by the term mothering because it speaks to the action of being a mother, the intention of doing something, not just being someone. And I thought not only of my own mother whose loving actions are often conveyed through steady companionship and a sense of home but also of my heavenly Mother whose womb surrounds me even as I labor to birth new visions and dreams. Her gracious presence provides buoyancy and lift when the struggles of life seem overwhelming.

How often have I been told not to embrace Her; to see Her as a threat to what it means to be a true Christian? And, how often have I internalized the implicit message that because I am a woman I am naturally less valued than men?

I’m looking forward to hearing from Letha and Melanie about how they have learned to embrace our Mother and to celebrate unabashedly Sophia’s presence in their lives.

Even Wikipedia Has a Messaging Problem—A Response by Melanie Springer Mock

I’ll start my post by saying I loved the VW car commercial, which I viewed through an entirely different lens. The athletically-challenged father playing catch with his son is laugh-out-loud funny, but also tender in its own way because the father was so intent, teaching his son the wrong way to throw a ball. For me, the commercial recalled the many misplaced efforts I’ve surely made with my own sons, trying to teach them something I don’t know well myself. (Explaining why the sun is so hot comes to mind, or showing them how to do long division.)

This is not to say that I’m inured of the explicitly negative cultural messages Kendra mentions about being a girl, throwing like a girl, even running like a girl. I’m not proud to admit that I’ve used one or two of those phrases with my own sons, in jest and before I realized exactly what I was saying. Running a 5K race recently with my younger son, I tried to inspire him to go faster by saying “c’mon, you don’t want that girl behind you to beat you” before realizing what I’d said implied that being passed by a girl might be shameful. I should have been ashamed by my comment. And was.

But as Kendra notes, these messages—that being born female makes one somehow aberrant—have been multiplied over our lifetimes. They are deeply ingrained, and hard to expel from our thinking, despite our best efforts.

Contemporary culture has also done little to help write a new narrative showing that women are not invisible, that they are not “the other.” Even recently, in my own academic discipline of English language and letters, we can see obvious ways that men are considered standard, the norm, and women’s contributions to literature something other.

You can read more about this event, which involved American women novelists and Wikipedia, in an NPR report here, and in The New York Times here. Essentially, sometime in April, Wikipedia created an American Women Novelists category, and contributors began moving the profiles of female writers off the American Novelist page, and into this sub-category. This meant there was a category for American Novelists, who all happened to be male and included some fairly obscure authors; and a category for the others: that is, the women, no matter how important her writing happened to be.

After a significant uproar, the names of women novelists migrated back to the American Novelist page, so (at least in this way) things have been made right for Wikipedia. But this event reflects the deeper and persistent cultural concern that Kendra writes so well about: being male seen as the standard, the norm, in the categories we create; in the language we use; in the ways we understand “strong” and “weak” (because who wants to throw like a girl?!); in the ways we speak within the church about God.

Kendra, Letha, and others in EEWC have helped attune my ears especially to the ways religious language has shaped our reality and created hegemony within the church. I appreciate how they teach me, by example and by gentle instruction. Because people have been central to my own journey toward accepting Sophia in my life—and because I am still learning this acceptance—I try to tread as gently with others who are also on a pathway similar to my own, and who are just now beginning to embrace Her.

Doing so is difficult, of course, when we read that something as mainstream as Wikipedia deals in sexism, conveying the message to women writers that their work is other. Doing so is difficult when these messages are so deeply entrenched, as Kendra mentions. Doing so is difficult when those deeply entrenched messages affect who I believe myself to be.

But embracing Her is also crucial to my own wholeness, my own sense of well-being. So I will try rewriting the narratives we’ve been told about what it means to be more female, so that someday, when I hear that I “run like a girl,” I will know that doing so means I run strong and true in the beautifully complex female body She has given me.

Gender talk, God talk, and Equality —A Response by Letha Dawson Scanzoni

Several years ago, a friend who taught at a university in one of the southern states told me about a state education conference she had attended. A male professor, assigned to introduce two female graduate students who were presenting scholarly papers, walked to the podium and announced, “I guess I have the honor of introducing these two pretty little girls. And I suppose some people here think I should introduce them as “Ms.” He sounded out the “mizz,” mockingly. “But I’m old-fashioned,” he continued, “and I don’t care what anyone says. A woman is either ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs.’ as I see it.”

When I heard about the incident, I started thinking about how ridiculous it would sound if a female professor used the same approach to introduce two male graduate students who were presenting scholarly papers. She’d announce, “I guess I have the honor of introducing these two cute little boys. And I suppose some people here think I should call them by the title “Mr.” But what really matters, in my opinion, is that the audience be informed about whether or not a man is attached to a woman in marriage and takes his identity from her. Therefore, I introduce to you Married-Man John Doe and Unmarried-Man John Donut.”

In their posts, Kendra and Melanie have turned a spotlight on the importance of words to either sustain or challenge the gender inequality that is such a part of our culture. And while trying to sort out the concerns they were bringing to our attention, I found four different but related issues.

Invisibility of women and their secondary status
In our culture, woman is considered to be subsumed under the category called man, the male being considered the default model or generic representative of what a human being is. Woman, the womb-man, is seen in relation to man.

The most egregious example of such thinking in theological terms is the statement by Stephen B. Clark that “it is the man who is called “Man” or “Human” and not the woman. He bears the name which is the designation of the whole race, and. . . he keeps that name even after woman is formed and he is no longer the only human. What we meet at the end of Genesis 4 is Human and his wife” (p. 25 in Man and Woman in Christ, Servant Books, 1980).

Linguists and social scientists speak of “marked” and “unmarked” categories, which is another way of stating a Gloria Steinem remark that I referred to in my annotation for a link of the day recently. Steinem said males are described with only a noun (for example, we might say “doctor” or “astronaut” or “pastor”) while a woman in the same position has been traditionally “marked” by an adjective (“woman doctor” or “female astronaut.” Or “woman pastor”), signifying she is not “the default” model.

Fortunately, more and more women and many men are becoming sensitive to this and changes are occurring, but such a “marking habit” is still very much alive. It’s the phenomenon that Melanie referred to in pointing out the recent uproar caused by Wikipedia’s attempt to categorize “American women novelists” as a separate category from the default category, “American novelists” (all men with the women subtracted).

Incidentally, one of the best articles I’ve ever read about women as “marked” was written twenty years ago by the linguist and prolific writer Deborah Tannen for the New York Times magazine. I found it was still available through Georgetown University, where Tannen teaches. Included in that article is a fascinating summary of Ralph Fasold’s observation that if language were modeled after biology, women would be the unmarked sex and men would be the marked ones!

This marked and unmarked categorization occurs in more areas than gender, for example in attitudes about racial dominance. An excellent article in Salon recently showed whiteness to be the unmarked, default category in our culture. Kartina Richardson writes that just as children learn about measurements by starting with the number one, with other numbers seen in relation to that basic number, so it is with black and brown people in relation to whiteness.

“This is called The Default,” she writes. “The belief that the white experience is a neutral and objective experience and white consciousness is the standard consciousness unless otherwise specified.” She says the whole of our society “ suffers from the tragedy of whiteness as the default setting.”

Negative terminology and imagery associated with women
In regard to gender, since men are considered The Default, they are assumed to be in charge, believing they have the right to make decisions affecting women. (Doubt that? Just watch what is happening in many state legislatures now making decisions about women’s health.)

At the same time, women’s experience of the world is often not only ignored but is trivialized and ridiculed. Laura Bates, in an article for The Independent, a British newspaper, writes about various types of terminology that are used to demean women, especially in the workplace. She writes, “The sexist labels used to describe women are often utterly irrelevant to the area in which they are working or the topic they are discussing, but are used as a means of forcing them into a category by which they can be easily dismissed. ” In other words, women can be taken less seriously when addressed by colleagues as “Sweetie” or gossiped about as “damaged goods,” a “slut,” or a “bitch.”

And then there are religious teachings that not only define man as “the default” but regard woman as the fault—the fault that sin entered the world. Here is what Tertullian, one of the early church fathers wrote to women:

“And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert— that is, death— even the Son of God had to die.” (from De Cultu Feminarum, “ On the Apparel of Women”)

Internalizing the negativity that society has associated with women
Melanie’s confession that she has sometimes fallen into the trap of implying to her two boys that the abilities of girls are more limited than those of boys shows how we women sometimes internalize society’s negative messages about girls and women. (Although in Melanie’s defense, I also know how she has created in her sons a great interest in women’s sports and an admiration for the talents, strengths, and skills these teams are demonstrating.) But I think her point is that it’s so easy to buy into cultural stereotypes of girls and women. which then serve to create doubt about the very real capabilities of women— ourselves included— even though intellectually we know better. Phrases like, “stupid women drivers!” or “women talk too much,” or “ women are too emotional,” or “women can’t think rationally” can be totally lacking in any factual basis but yet serve to cause women to mistrust their own perceptions.

Concepts of God and Gender
Scripture says that God is Spirit, and of course a spirit by definition is outside the physical and would certainly not have the physical characteristics that mark a person as female or male. I believe that thinking about God as being neither male nor female but beyond a gender classification is not only biblical but liberating. For one thing, it moves us away from the exclusively male metaphor for God that has not only affected our idea of the Divine but has also affected the self-image of girls from childhood forward, as Jann Aldredge-Clanton points out in “How do we teach girls and boys they are equal.”

Both Kendra and Melanie have ended their parts of this latest FemFaith post by talking about the way their lives have been affected by getting in touch with a mental image of God as female, personified as “Sophia” (Greek for Wisdom) or “Christ-Sophia.” Again, Jann Aldredge-Clanton provides an excellent explanation of the use of this name for God.

We can expand our image of God by realizing that our minds can’t possibly grasp all that God is—whether in terms of gender or anything else. That makes it necessary to think in metaphors.

It also helps to realize that God has many names, and I think of Sophia as but one of these many names for God although I actually tend not to use it quite so widely or exclusively as many of my friends in EEWC for whom it is the one name that provides the most meaning and liberation from male imagery. And I appreciate and honor that totally. My somewhat lesser use of it is just personal preference, especially when I have in mind particular audiences with whom I want to communicate and for whom I would have to stop and explain the term, which would then divert them entirely from hearing the point I would be making— a point that is usually “radical” enough in itself! Or in some cases, I am being sensitive toward the feelings of some people who are just taking baby steps into Christian feminism and who need a gradual approach before they can fully understand and embrace female God language. In such cases, I’ve found that starting out with the concept of God as Mother, perhaps referring to passages such as Isaiah 66:13, is often the first step before introducing some of the other names.  (I’ve probably just raised more questions than I’ve answered!) 

But saying all this does not mean that I ever revert to the use of male pronouns, no matter the audience (I stopped that back in the 1970s). And I often pray to God as Mother and find great comfort in doing so, just as I relate to and understand fully the strength and wisdom that comes from the name Sophia. I also love the female “God imagery” in the songs of Kathryn Christian and Colleen Fulmer, both of whom I’ve written about several times in profiles and reviews for Christian Feminism Today.

This rethinking of concepts about God is all part of a journey I think we’re all traveling in these questioning, changing times. I’m sure Kendra, Melanie, and I have lots more to say about the topics under all four of the headings above, and I’m sure we’ll be discussing various aspects of them well into the future.

by Reta Halteman Finger

This earliest papyrus fragment from a Greek codex of John’s Gospel is about the size of your hand. The front (pictured) contains parts of John 18:31-33, and the back is from 18:37-38. It was copied sometime during the first half of the 2nd century, possibly during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE). Named the Rylands Papyrus 52, it is displayed at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on him shall not perish but have everlasting life. If you grew up in a Bible-believing church, you know John 3:16 by heart. Another familiar term occurs in 3:3, where Jesus tells Nicodemus he has to be “born again” to enter God’s family. People used to hand out tracts on city streets and ask people if they were born again. Perhaps they still do. Do any of them notice the female imagery? The birth-giving Spirit is our Mother.

I chose this Gospel for our second lesson series because I think it is the most thoroughly feminist writing in our New Testament. Most Christians don’t know that—but all the more reason to get acquainted with this tough, tender, mothering Jesus who befriends women as well as men.

We won’t focus only on a feminist approach, however. This Gospel is rich beyond measure, saturated with imagery from the Hebrew Bible, theologically radical, and fertile ground for the use of literary, social-science, and political analysis. I will only scratch the surface and depend on readers for additional insights.

Some Background Details   

All four canonical Gospels are anonymous. Names of original apostles or apostles’ companions were attached to them in the second century to identify these writings as authoritative at a time when other Gospels and fanciful stories about Jesus were proliferating. Matthew and John were two of Jesus’ disciples, Mark was a companion of Peter, and Luke sometimes accompanied the Apostle Paul. Some traditions trace the four Gospels to various Christian communities in Rome, Antioch, or Ephesus.

The process of canonizing our 27 New Testament books took several centuries, but the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—were shoo-ins. Though some thought John too Gnostic, it was ultimately considered orthodox.

Few scholars today believe John the disciple authored this Gospel. Many incidents are set in Judea and Jerusalem, foreign territory for a Galilean fisherman. Though the simple Greek points to an author using it as a second language, the literary skill and use of Old Testament material points to someone with significant education. The “beloved disciple” (3:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20) must be the author, but s/he clearly wants to remain anonymous. I will refer to “John” for the sake of brevity—but please think of “John” in quotes!

Reading Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is obvious that they have a literary relationship to each other. Some texts read almost word-for-word, as when Jesus blesses the children (Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17). Over 90 percent of Mark’s material is included in both Matthew and Luke, so Mark was likely written first, around 65-70 CE. As Mark circulated, Matthew and Luke copied and edited large chunks of Mark, perhaps by the 80s of the first century.

John, however, is independent of the other Gospels, in both writing style and much of its content. Here Jesus’ ministry lasts for three years, rather than only one year in the Synoptics, and he visits Jerusalem several times before his death. The Synoptics show that Jesus was executed because he disrupted the temple treasury that same week, but John places this act of civil disobedience at the beginning of his ministry (2:13-25).

In the Synoptics, Jesus is crucified on a Friday, but John’s Jesus is crucified on the Thursday of that week for literary and theological reasons we’ll discuss later.

Plots, Characters, and Settings

Lest some readers are troubled by such striking discrepancies, we are greatly helped by an interpretive approach called “narrative criticism.” All four Gospels tell one story of Jesus, but they each develop their own narrative with distinct plots. A plot demands certain characters, settings, and reorganizations that are necessary for that plot. Using narrative criticism, you will find that the plot within each Gospel narrative carries the deepest theology of its author.

Click on the image to open a printable diagram.

As the diagram shows, the movement of John’s plot is V-shaped  and can be divided into two parts:

1. “The Descent of the Word” (the first twelve chapters).
2.  “The Ascent of the Word” (chapter 13:1 through the end of the book. 

The words, “Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father”(13:1) mark the turning point.  The rest of the book from that point on— including every trauma involved in Jesus’ arrest, trials, and execution— is ironically part of his ascent back to God.

We can also think of subtitles for this two-part division because something else is happening within both the Descent and Ascent sections.  The first eleven chapters of John’s gospel can be called “The Book of Signs” because they present Jesus’ actions and miracles, which are called “signs.”  The events after the “signs” comprise what may be called “The Book of Glory,” because Jesus often refers to these events as the way both he and his Father are glorified.

As these titles suggest, this Gospel is permeated with irony, both verbal and dramatic. Future lessons will highlight many of these profound but often hilarious ironies. I invite you into the joy of this unique “Gospel of the Beloved Disciple”! 

Next lesson: “In the beginning was Sophia…”

Questions for discussion and reflection:

1. What is your history with the Gospel of John? If you have a church background, how was it used in worship, study, or evangelism? Do you recall any special verses?

2. What ironies or woman-friendly texts have you previously noted in this Gospel?

Home > Book Reviews Index> Does Jesus Really Love Me?  A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America

Does Jesus Really Love Me?  A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America

by Jeff Chu
New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2013.
Hardback, 353 pages. 

Reviewed by Marg Herder 

It used to be that evangelical Christians didn’t have much trouble with LGBT people.  There weren’t many of them running around in evangelical circles (at least that anyone knew about).  And the few who became visible were quickly escorted out of the sanctuary and into the street, unrepentant sinners left to fend for themselves while the doors slammed shut behind them.

But something’s been happening in evangelical Christianity lately.  Gay Christians are refusing to go quietly, instead sticking a foot in the door and asking to talk about hermeneutics and Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.  And there are even some straight evangelical Christians talking about how “love wins” and refusing to participate in efforts to marginalize LGBT people, instead opening their own sanctuaries and unlocking the doors.

Gay people started realizing several years ago that what people are afraid of, what people hate, what people feel compelled to retreat from is a caricature of what a gay person is. It’s not about the real people we are but about something else entirely— something like the fictional conspiracy theory of “the homosexual agenda.”

What gay people have figured out is that when we show them who we are, reality replaces the frightening fictions.  And with any luck, love replaces fear.

A Rock in the Door

So let’s talk about Jeff Chu and his new book, Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America.

Jeff Chu is a thirty-five year old writer who grew up in evangelical Christianity.  As things turned out, Jeff is gay.  His family has a problem with that, as does evangelical Christianity.  Lately many evangelical leaders are trying to be more compassionate by saying that people just might be born gay, and sure, they can still be Christians, they can still go to heaven.  All they have to do is just never act on their orientation.  In other words, being gay is a problematic defect, but God and the church are cool with that if you just don’t go through life expressing your love with a same-sex partner.

Jeff didn’t follow that rule.  He’s in a committed relationship with another man. But he still identifies as an evangelical Christian even though, as one might expect, Jeff was shown the door.  I got the feeling Jeff thinks this all might be a big misunderstanding, one that can be worked out by doing some research and finding a solution.  It’s almost as though when he was shown the door he put a rock in it to keep it open, so that once he found the answer, he could get back in to share it with everyone.

The Pilgrimage

In 2005, Jeff set off on what he describes as a pilgrimage across America.  He wanted to learn what Christians had to say about homosexuality, so he met and interviewed all kinds of Christians, some gay and some not, some conservative and some liberal, some who come off as admirable loving human beings and some who don’t.

He wrote Does Jesus Really Love Me? about the experience.  Unlike one of my favorite books on the subject, one that also asks a question— Is the Homosexual my Neighbor?, by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott— Chu ends his book without finding the answer to his own question. 

Jeff’s book is divided into four sections: Doubting, Struggling, Reconciling, and Hoping.  Each of these sections is divided into chapters, with each chapter dealing with a person, group of people, or particular example of gay Christian culture. There are chapters featuring some familiar names (Westboro Baptist Church, the Gay Christian Network, Metropolitan Community Church, Jennifer Knapp) and some with people or organizations that are probably new to you.

The book has been almost universally praised.  It’s well written, as you would expect from an experienced  journalist like Chu, who wrote for Time Magazine for seven years.  Although his words are carefully chosen, the tone is somewhat businesslike, and there’s not a lot of emotion or poetry to Chu’s prose. Any conclusions or assessments are reserved until after he has finished making his “journalistic” presentation in each chapter.  

Different Levels of Understanding

On its most approachable level, this book could serve as a kind of “Gay and Christian 101″ for evangelicals. I can only hope that a few people will take time out from worrying about “the homosexual agenda” long enough to quietly download or buy this book and familiarize themselves with the very real people and issues involved.  This book will certainly provide more and better information than most social conservatives are hearing from the pulpit or on “their” internet, radio, and TV outlets.  And that’s a good thing.  I think we can all be grateful to Jeff for providing a book that might bring some people to a more compassionate understanding of the human beings involved.

On another level the book will serve as a source of some reassurance for emerging LGBT evangelical Christians who will identify with Jeff’s forthright honesty about his feelings.  He welcomes the reader into his struggle and in doing so makes it possible for those in similar situations to understand they are not alone in the confusion, doubt, and anxiety associated with losing one’s place in family, church, and evangelicalism, all because of the particular Divine image in which they were created. 

On a much less apparent level, this book is a voyeuristic look into the messy and gut-wrenching process of a person’s coming to terms with an LGBT identity after a lifetime of being indoctrinated into a theology that says gay people suffer from a shameful defect and will be punished by an angry God throughout an eternity of torment.  And this “defect” is not only displeasing to God, but is so threatening that God encourages His people to physically exclude and verbally denigrate any who are afflicted with it.  In this way, the book is a blurry black and white snapshot of a person who has come to understand his homosexuality as something fundamental and innate, but who just can’t shake off the threat of meeting an angry God or the need for the approval he used to get by belonging to a group of people so sure of their own salvation.   

Jeff writes, “How often did I imagine what hell might be like, wondering, if He didn’t make me straight, what the fire and brimstone would feel like?” (p. 70)

An Emotional Roller Coaster

Some of the things people said to Jeff made me furious. From an ex-gay (or reparative therapy) counselor: “If [one says they] can follow God and yet engage in a gay lifestyle, I cannot in good conscience give them full assurance of salvation.”  (p. 126)   What person even has such authority?

Other times I felt disappointed, such as  when Jeff feels compelled to tell us how he earned a modicum of approval from Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church (p. 64-65), or when he dismisses the  Metropolitan Community Church with his comment, that “the MCC is more focused on people than on God.” (p. 297) Chu apparently lacks an appreciation of the historically significant role the MCC has played in ministering to the souls of thousands and thousands of his own people.

But anger and disappointment aside,  most of the time the book made me hurt.  It kept bringing me back to the numbness and confusion I felt as the careful construction of my life fell away in 1979 when I said those three words to a minister, “I am gay.”  In this book I could feel Jeff Chu wanting his family, his church, and evangelical Christianity to stop seeing him as a big orange fluorescent “gay” label, and go back to seeing him how they used to see him, as an interesting, intelligent, and earnest evangelical Christian.  I could feel him stretching toward the words he so badly wants to hear, “You are evangelical.  You are Christian.  You are family.  We see that now.  You are welcome here.”

But sadly, as a gay man who refuses to live a life of celibacy, Jeff is not welcome.

How It Ends

In the conclusion, Jeff talks about reconnecting with someone he knew from his teens.  The man was an evangelical Christian, a married Bible teacher who got fired from the Christian school Jeff attended because his wife caught him with another man, and everyone found out. 

Jeff tracks him down for an interview.  They meet for lunch.  The man tells Jeff his story, and explains how his understanding of God has evolved from the evangelical Christian model of his youth in order to fit the reality of his life as an openly gay man.  And he tells Jeff, “I feel integrated now.  I feel at peace.”  Jeff’s next sentence is, “I don’t believe him.” He continues in the same paragraph, “I don’t believe him because I don’t want to believe him.  This is how it ends?  I am thinking.  Where’s the redemption?  Where’s the endurance of the faith?  Where’s the perseverance of the saint?” (p. 342) 

Jeff, since you’ve been honest enough to show me your heart, there’s something you ought to know.

That is how it ends.  It ends with the ongoing and fluid awareness that you are but one of the billions of beautiful children created in the Divine image, all equally worthy of salvation.  Your identity as a gay man combined with your history as an evangelical will help you in becoming a deeply spiritual seeker with a tender and precious relationship to a God who is maddeningly hard to explain.  Perhaps you will learn to love and honor every single aspect of your own particular Divine image, especially when others refuse to do so.  That’s what redemption looks like.  That’s what enduring faith looks like.  That knowledge is how the saints persevere.

And that rock?  The one you put in the door so you could go back to how it was with your evangelical faith, family, and community?  It’s gone.  That’s just what happens.  That door is shut.

And I’m so sorry— and so happy, for you.

There’s plenty about Jeff and his book on the web.

You could start with this New York Times article. 
Here’s the official website of the book.
Good interview with Jeff on Religion Dispatches by Candace Chellew-Hodge. 

Marg Herder is a sound artist, musician, photographer, web designer and writer who serves as the Office Manager and Web Developer for Christian Feminism Today.  Though Marg grew up very active in her church, she left in 1980 after realizing as a lesbian she was not welcome to share in true fellowship.  

After years of enduring the verbal and emotional violence inflicted on LGBT people by so called “Christians” she had reached the point of simply dismissing Christians as egocentric bullies and written off the faith of her childhood as irrelevant.  But in 2002 she met the people of EEWC and began to understand that there are different Christians, those who follow the teachings of Jesus to create a congregation of humility and inclusion.   

Find more of her work on her website at margherder.com.

© 2013 by EEWC-Christian Feminism Today

Home > Book Reviews Index> Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-faith World

Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-faith World

by Brian McLaren
Jericho Books, 2012
288 pages, hardback.

Reviewed by Rebecca Kiser

It was the title that drew me to Brian McLaren’s 24th book. This obvious play on many old jokes introduces his purpose in the book:

“So to imagine Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed taking a walk across a road or even getting together with friends for a meal and conversation doesn’t have to introduce a joke: it could introduce one of the most important conversations possible in today’s world . . . but what approach should I take?. . .in the end I felt I should take. . . a practical, pastoral, and constructive one, focusing on how to develop a healthy, sane, and faithful Christian identity in a multifaith world like ours.” (pp.8-9)

The book is divided into four sections, beginning with a fascinating discussion of “The Crisis of Christian Identity,” followed by sections on a reinterpretation of traditional doctrines, a reexamination of liturgical practices, and a new look at the challenges of the missional church.

The concept of Christian identity was new to me, so I was especially intrigued by the lengthy first section, as McLaren discussed several ways in which Christians relate to people of other faiths in our country and world. Interestingly, other religions can have the same range of identity conflicts.

He begins with the more common identification of Christians against other faiths, in which the stronger one’s identity as a Christian, the more we respond with aversion to other religions and their adherents, emphasizing our differences. He names this stance, “Strong/Hostile.” Countering this stance will be a major theme of the whole book, using the following sections to roust out these roots that he traces back to Christianity becoming mixed with Constantine’s empire. Finding a strong Christian identity that doesn’t place us in this traditional position as “right” to their “wrong,” or “good” to their “evil,” is his goal. Since much of our Christian history is from this oppositional stance, the roots are long and deep. In some delightful word play, he makes much of the common etymological root between hostile and hostage—and then host and hospitality.

Often when we become uncomfortable with this hostility against other faiths in our practice of faith, we move to the other end of the scale which he names, “Weak/Benign.” We end up minimizing differences, maximizing commonalities, never proselytizing, and seek just tolerance, co-existence, and harmlessness. McLaren also criticizes this stance, as it weakens religious identity, plays it down, and makes it matter less which religion one is. In fact, many would toss together elements from many religions in what he calls a “religious salad.”

Thus, in this struggle, not satisfied with the hostility nor the undifferentiated niceness, we find ourselves with, “Conflicted Religious Identity Syndrome.” We can become cynical, quit associating ourselves with Christianity, or being what he calls “adjective Christians,” making sure we explain that we are “progressive” or “emergent” or “post-Protestant” to disconnect ourselves from the kind of Christianity that makes strident headlines.

So how do we disassociate from the hostility, yet hold on to what is good and real in our faith? Many have been unable to see an alternative, and so they live in a muddy middle that McLaren names “Moderately Strong/Moderately Benign.” (This ambivalence is probably where I’ve dwelt in the last years— which became ultimately unsatisfying and made me interested in this book!)

Discarding all of these approaches to Christian identity as not good enough for our world today, he then proposes a Christian identity that is both strong (vigorous, vital, durable, faithful) and kind (benevolent, hospitable, accepting, interesting and loving— not just tolerant). Finding and inhabiting that “gracious space” of solidarity and relationship is the goal, a call for us to be peacemakers. He names this one, “Strong/Benevolent.’” It recognizes that we can live strongly in our Christian tradition and still respect and honor other traditions.

I had to read the three other sections of the book a second time, because initially I was so blown away by the section on Christian identity that I couldn’t take it all in.

In the section on “The Doctrinal Challenge,” McLaren takes a page from Diana Butler Bass, who associates the words “doctrine” with “doctor,” and sees them as potentially “healing teachings.” He explores the doctrines of creation, original sin, election, the Trinity, Christology and the Holy Spirit, seeking to “debug” these of the empire and hostility “viruses.” He realizes this can be rather destabilizing to the whole system, as doctrines intersect with each other, but thinks it is worth it to renew doctrinal understandings for our “Strong/Benevolent” Christian identity.

He does the same in the section on our liturgical practices, such as our understandings of the church year, baptism, sermons and songs, Bible reading, and the Lord ’s Table.

In the final section of the book, “the Missional Challenge,” he returns to the idea of genuine friendship, based on Moltmann’s view of how Jesus exercised radical friendships that crossed all kinds of barriers. “A Christian moves towards the other in friendship,” he says. Charity leads to advocacy, a “with-ness” or solidarity with the other to work for the common good. Religion organizes for this purpose, he states. In a move that I particularly respond to, he sees this choice to live for the common good and not live for selfish or group-ish ends, as the sacred mission of salvation for the world (p.258).

I found a good balance between the discussion of ideas and first-hand stories of healing encounters. The book has a lot of footnotes on each page, which is less daunting than it sounds— many of the footnotes are anecdotes, illustrations, or helpful recommendations of other authors and books.

As to the title’s question, “ Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed cross the road?,” several answers are noted in various footnotes, for example, “to escape from a mob of their hypercritical followers (!)”; another is “to show solidarity with those on the other side“; and then, “to walk side by side and together sort out the theological issues that too often turn followers into enemies rather than friends.” But my simple favorite is, “to get to the Other.”

Rev. Rebecca “Becky” Kiser is currently the pastor at First Presbyterian Church in West Plains, Missouri. She writes: “In September 2013, I will celebrate 30 years of ordination. Over these years, I’ve been called to many kinds of service to the larger church. When I realized women were being ordained as clergy, I remember saying to myself, “Wow, I can do the studying I love and still earn my keep!” Things haven’t always worked out the way I pictured, although I’ve enjoyed most parts of the ministry. With my three children out on their own now, I’m adjusting to a quiet house. I read avidly, garden ferociously, and am glad to have Gypsy Kitty to welcome me home.”

© 2013 by EEWC-Christian Feminism Today

(With responses from Kendra Weddle Irons and Letha Dawson Scanzoni)

As I write this from my office on a Friday afternoon, with next week’s classes to be planned, a ton of grading to grind through, and a book review to write, my thoughts have turned to housekeeping. More specifically, the keeping of my house, since we are having dinner guests, and I haven’t been home since early this morning, after my boys were awake but before they’d climbed from beneath their warm covers to wreck havoc on our home.

What will I find on the floors and couches and hallway table after I get home and before I start cooking dinner? Why will I be the one in our family who takes to tidying the house? And why, for the love of God, will I be the one judged negatively if the bathroom floor isn’t properly cleaned?

Because current writing on housework argues, convincingly, that a wife will still be blamed for a messy house, not her spouse or other family members. It’s an argument I’ve been having with my husband for years: when he has buddies over for a game night, and claims I don’t need to clean up, I do anyway, certain that if I leave stray little boy socks in the hallway or toys cluttering the stairs, I will take the fall for detritus that is not, after all, mine.

And now research supports my assertion. According to a recent article in the New Republic, house cleaning is “The Final Feminist Frontier.” Jessica Grose provides evidence there showing that Arlie Hochschild’s Second Shift is alive and well; and that moms employed outside the home still do at least 1.5 weeks of housework per year more than their male partners. While men are still doing more household chores than previous generations, they do not contribute what we would assume their fair share, and—Grose argues—are more likely to complete tasks considered more palatable: playing with the kids, making dinner. Meaning, I guess, women are still relegated to cleaning the toilets.

Grose offers several suggestions in her article about what men and women can do to make housecleaning less “the final feminist frontier” and marriages as egalitarian in deed as they now are in name. Her advice? Apply economic theory to household chores, dividing up tasks according to competitive advantage. Or, women might lower their “filth threshold,” rather than holding their partners to higher standards. Finally, her article suggests making cleaning more “fun” for men by providing gadgets that make tasks more interesting.

Which makes me wonder: When do women also get gadgets to make cleaning more fun? (Or maybe the automatic dishwasher was supposed to do that?)

In a response to Grose’s article, New York’s Jonathan Chait expands on Grose’s idea about filth thresholds, saying women just need to get over their cleaning fetishes, lower their standards, and do less housework. He writes, “Women in general just have higher standards of cleanliness than men do. People who care a lot about neater homes spend more time cleaning them because that makes them happy.” His answer seems to be that women need to leave the socks and toys and dirty dishes where they land, because women who want true equality need to “try living like men” and “put down the duster.”

Chait’s generalizations about men and their messes not withstanding, he forgets an important component of the housework “frontier.” As Slate writer Emily Shire points out, women will often be blamed for a house in disarray, arguing “Before Chait begins telling women how easy it is to let go of their uptight tidiness and lower their standards for clean living, he should think hard about who’s going to be judged for all that sloppiness. And then maybe he should pick up the duster.”

This is a point Grose also explores in her article. Although men and women may share household duties (or the lack of same), a woman will be more likely blamed for the state of her home. According to Grosse, this reality actually dissuades men from wanting to share the load because the converse is also true: if a man cleans the entire home top to bottom, the woman is more often credited.

What seems to reside at the heart of these arguments, and the multitude of responses they inspired, is the perception that the domestic realm remains a woman’s, even in egalitarian marriages, even in marriages where a man actually does most of the housework. This perception is fueled by a number of forces, including traditional understanding of gender, but also popular culture; as Grose argues, advertisements for cleaning products are overwhelmingly pitched to women, so much so that a commercial about Tide, starring a man, is lauded for its unique casting.

As a Christian, a spouse, and a mother who longs for her family to be happy, healthy, and comfortable, I suppose I should see the house tasks I complete as a servant’s work, part of the way I express love to those I care about most. At least I think this is what I should do, which makes me feel extra doses of guilt each time I begrudgingly shove another load of clothes into the wash, or pick up shoes from the hallway for the zillionth time—shoes my husband and my boys have walked right over without really seeing or caring that they are a potential stumbling hazard.

So I probably should be more of a joyful servant. But then I get irritated when I read things like this: an article from Prodigal magazine, castigating “feminist sisters” for being “too angry to serve others.” According to the author, Emily Wierenga, we are to bless others with our service, including our housework, because Jesus modeled true servanthood for us. In reading her article, my skin crawled, in part because I wondered: should our Christian brothers be called to the same kind of service? But then maybe my feminist anger makes it hard for me to read with clarity.

So here we are, at what is apparently the “last feminist frontier.” Should this Christian feminist just suck it up and put another load in the laundry? Should she find ways to make cleaning more “fun” for her family? Lower her cleaning threshold, and accept whatever judgment may come? Or swallow her anger and bless her family with service to them?

What say you, Letha and Kendra?

Fear Sustains the Housekeeping Myth, but It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way — A Response by Kendra Weddle Irons

While Melanie may have written her post from her serene office wondering what state of cleanliness she would find her home to be in when she returned from her day on campus, I am writing mine from the my kitchen table that hasn’t seen a rag in I don’t know how long; the kitchen countertop is buried under a barrage of papers, electronic devices, my school bag, and who knows what else; the floor hasn’t been mopped in ages. I could go on, but you get the picture. My house is a veritable pig sty.

And truth be told, as Melanie lamented, house work is considered by most, even in the 21st century, to be women’s work. But more than that: God’s ordained women’s work. I was reminded of the power of this traditional framework this week when I flipped through the pages of Mark and Grace Driscoll’s popular book, Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship & Life Together where they address the potential challenge of having frequent sex when the wife is exhausted, the demands of childcare and cooking and cleaning taking their toll. So, here is their advice to men in such a case:

“Men, we can also help our wives by serving them, especially if they are working outside the home or have children who can take forever to get down for bed. This may include, if finances permit, a housekeeper or other help to free up some of your wife’s energy. And if your spouse is willing to be together but very tired, you can be the one who does much of the work in lovemaking on those occasions.” (168)

Confirming Melanie’s assertion, the advice here is do anything except what would actually solve the problem: see housekeeping as a shared responsibility.

But while we expect this position by those promoting a complementarian approach to marriage like the Driscolls, the tacit endorsement of housecleaning and childrearing as women’s work obviously plagues our entire society, resulting in women bearing the continual brunt of this reality in secular and religious homes, in complementarian and egalitarian marriages. As Sheryl Sandberg writes in Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, many women have serious doubts about their abilities to “have it all” because they have grown up watching their mothers struggle to maintain family-work balance.

I’m sure there are several supposed “answers” to Melanie’s question, but truthfully, I feel ill-equipped to address them because I do not have children to add to the time demands that women have. And, knowing first-hand how much Melanie accomplishes any given day is so far beyond my comprehension I just feel at a loss to add anything worth noting.

On the other hand, I have recently been reading Sandberg’s book and her insight could be useful, at least as a place for further conversation.

The first assertion Sandberg and others make is that the United States is woefully behind most other industrialized countries in our family-leave policies and this essentially works to penalize women who are mothers. We need to continue to put pressure on politicians to change this system that is structured to reward men in their careers while punishing women both in terms of maternity leave but also in the day-to-day challenges of day-care or after-school care or “what-in-the-world-do-I-do-with-3-months-of-summer-vacation?”care. In this inattentiveness to the demands of a contemporary society built upon the working presence of women and men, the U.S. is reaping what we have sown: an abundance of male politicians who have failed to take seriously the lives and experiences of women, resulting in policies that largely reflect this indifference or lack of awareness.

And while it would be easy to place this blame entirely at the feet of our representative imbalance, there is additional blame to be placed squarely at the feet of our educators and of women in general who have failed to remember and to build upon the suffrage leaders who gave so much, who were willing to endure being ostracized, who were rejected by family and friends and who, in some cases, were jailed (and went on hunger strikes) for their activism. (By the way, if you have not watched the film Iron-Jawed Angels about the suffrage movement, I hope you will and will show it to as many young women as you can.) In our failure to remember by embracing our foremothers’ activism, we have essentially enjoyed the benefits they created without extending this legacy to those who will follow in our shoes.

Our struggle, though, is not entirely to be embraced on the political field, it also challenges each of us within our own families and is individual and personal. Here, Sandberg says women need to acknowledge how often they are held back because of fear. This fear is the result of our own internalization of society’s stereotypes which we uncritically accept as a barrier to our success in the workplace. And so, we need to realize where these fears originate and decide to move beyond them. We can resolve that these (false) limitations will not hold us back.

It’s true that in our recognition of stereotypes, we often make them self-fulfilling prophecies: “I know people will judge me for our filthy home; I feel solely responsible for the cleanliness of this home; I am the one who failed to keep it clean; it is my fault.”

I think Sandberg would say: acknowledge this fear of disapproval and then decide you are not going to accept it as yours any longer.

This sounds pretty harsh, especially when surrounded by lots of people who you think are judging your clutter and store-purchased meals. However, I imagine that in many cases what one may think is a judgmental attitude is more likely someone feeling a little jealous; someone amazed like I am by the monumental amount of stuff women, like Melanie, accomplish each day all while rearing children.

My guess is that most people are not judging women for a messy house so much as wishing they would have considered the plethora of opportunities available to them had they not rejected such possibilities as incompatible with God’s plan.

Women and Housework: Understanding and Challenging the Expectations — A Response by Letha Dawson Scanzoni

When I was engaged to be married, my future mother-in-law sat me down one day and told me I must learn to darn my future husband’s socks. She said she would teach me how to do it (and she did!), since she was in essence passing him on to my care.

This was during the second half of the 1950s. A woman’s destiny was to care for “her man” and all his needs. The message came from religion, education, government, business and the professions, women’s magazines, advertisements, and just about everywhere else: a woman’s highest calling was to be a homemaker, keeping her home tidy and her husband and children happy. If she were poor and had to work in a factory or clean houses, she was still expected to keep up her own homemaking tasks. If she were middle-class, social norms dictated that she could be employed outside the home only to earn extra “pin money,”or for helping put her husband through college, or perhaps taking on temporary employment in an emergency situation. But always, she must remember that caring for her home and family must be primary.

During the 1960s and 1970s, we women began waking up to the unfairness of the setup; and even though some men joined in and talked about the inequities, all too little changed in the housework situation. So this “final feminist frontier” is still being discussed today, as Melanie pointed out in her opening post.

The “practical”side of the issue: who decides?
During the three years that I wrote another intergenerational blog called 72-27 with Kimberly George, we discussed this topic many times. (See, for example, “More about Gender-Based Division of Labor in the Home.”) In one post, I pointed out that any time two adults share a home and might also be raising children, those adults, (whether a gay or straight couple, or grandparents thrust into the responsibility of raising their grandchildren, or two friends sharing an apartment to divide up expenses) will have to work out a division of labor that keeps the household running smoothly. “It has to be something that works for them,” I wrote, “for their individual situation — not dictated from the outside” (from 72-27, “Work-Family Balance: 1950s and Now”)

But here’s the problem. It often seems easier to adopt a ready-made solution to how household labor is assigned than it is to work out an arrangement tailored to the unique situation of a particular family—especially if the “ready-made solution” from the outside is said to have originated in the “natural qualities” of certain categories of persons or because it was established by Divine decree!

What happens in families also happens in societies. If there’s a belief that certain categories of persons are born into a certain status for a certain purpose, that belief can be used to justify the assignment of drudge work to those who were “created to do it”— the serfs and slaves of a society. Think of India’s old caste system. Or think about the ideology of the “great chain of being,” which included assigning persons to higher and lower rankings on what was considered a “scale of nature,” a prearranged hierarchy ranging from angels down to the smallest particles of matter. It was a popular idea during the 18th and 19th centuries and was used, for example, to declare the innate superiority of white Europeans (higher ranking on the scale) and inferiority of black Africans (lower ranking), thereby justifying slavery.

Order is what matters in this way of thinking, and order is established by adhering to a preordained arrangement. When people know their places and their predetermined assignments, the work gets done and the status quo is maintained.

This hierarchical division of labor, based on one’s placement by birth according to a “natural” ranking, is today largely rejected in societies that at least give lip service to the idea of choice and social mobility . But, societies aside, when it comes to the smaller unit of heterosexual marriages, the belief of a predetermined natural order continues to prevail, with the wife primarily responsible for cooking, housecleaning, laundry, childcare, and the like.

Religious reinforcement for a traditional division of labor
To drive home the point, many Christians emphasize that a wife’s household duties are assigned to her by God. They eagerly point to Scripture passages such as Genesis 2:20-24; 3:16 ; Proverbs 31:10-31 (especially verse 27: “She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.”); and Titus 2:3-5.

In their Ain’t I a Woman blog, Kendra and Melanie have often pointed out the misleading way many conservative Christians are using these and other Bible passages to buttress female subordination arguments by disregarding the historical/cultural contexts of such passages and ignoring other passages and interpretations that promote gender equality.

One way Christians have attempted to “sweeten” the expectation that women are the ones who will work a “second shift” of evening household chores after finishing an all-day “first shift” in paid employment, is to emphasize that by performing these chores a woman is following Jesus’ example of servanthood. After all, even the lowliest task can be done “for the glory of God” in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 10:31.

And yes, of course, there is great truth in viewing any kind of work as honorable and a means of serving God. With respect to taking her turns for kitchen duty, St. Teresa of Avila wrote that “God walks even among the pots and pipkins (small cooking vessels).” Brother Lawrence, in his 17th century Christian classic The Practice of the Presence of God, shared his personal habit of viewing everyday chores like cleaning, cooking, and washing dishes as a means of constant communion with God.

But these examples of voluntary servanthood are about the personal inner attitudes of individuals, not something imposed from the outside on a whole category of people based on their race, socioeconomic class, or gender. Yet, history provides plenty of examples in which those in power persuade those with little or no power that the drudge work they’ve been assigned is part of God’s plan for them.

During the period of slavery in the United States, preachers and masters alike made sure slaves heard Bible passages like Ephesians 6:5-6. And I’ve read that later on, these same verses were actually framed and hung on the walls of domestic servant quarters in homes that employed live-in hired help.

There were other reminders, too, that serving the wealthy in the right spirit was to be considered service for God. It is said that John D. Rockefeller Sr. especially liked a poem written in the 1920s from the standpoint of a maid who, lacking time for sacred practices and rituals such as early vigils and “storming heaven’s gates,” instead prayed that “the Lord of pots and pipkins” would “make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates.” In another stanza of the poem,”The Divine Office of the Kitchen,” the servant girl pretends she is making music for God as she scrubs a “so hard to clean” frying pan, pretending it is a violin.

By not questioning the setup, women can be enablers, perpetuating it
On the evening news last weekend, I heard about former volleyball star Gabrielle Reece’s public assertions that a woman’s strengths come through submission. Her statements have attracted considerable attention and discussion. According to the UK’s Daily Mail:

“Reece, who married surfer Laird Hamilton 17 years ago in Hawaii, says ‘I’m clearly the female; Laird’s clearly the male. I’m willing and I choose to serve the family, which means dinner and laundry and organizing his schedule as well as my schedule and other things.’”

She emphasizes she does all these things by choice.

I, too, did all the household drudgery tasks for more than a quarter of a century of marriage. Cooked every meal from scratch, did every load of laundry (including washing cloth diapers on an old wringer-washing machine and drying them outside on a line or on a wooden folding rack indoors), scrubbed and waxed kitchen floors, often on my hands and knees, and would have said sincerely that I did it all by choice and out of love for my family and as part of my responsibilities as a Christian wife and mother.

But I wonder now how much it really was by free choice. How much was it because of societal expectations (so strong in the 1950s and ‘60s) and the approval that comes from fulfilling those expectations? Was I convinced that only by fulfilling those expectations (reinforced by Christian teachings) could I give myself permission to devote time and energy to my writing and speaking career, which I loved so much, and allow myself to intellectually embrace feminist ideals without being concerned about being judged? Was I trying to “have it all” by “doing it all”?

I understand totally what Melanie was saying. I remember the pastor of the church we attended at the time stopping by to visit one afternoon . Looking around the home, he blurted out, “You’re the kind of woman other women love to hate—you carry on a writing career and yet keep a nice home.” He paused and then added, “But you could make it a bit more decorative. The mantel above the fireplace looks rather bare.” (He’s the same pastor who during a Mother’s Day sermon said he had figured out why wives were so happy to be taken out for dinner in a restaurant. “It gives them a chance to just sit there and be served for a change.”)

I wonder how much we women ourselves contribute to the ongoing pattern of expectations by simply falling into the traditional housework-is-woman’s-work pattern, perhaps lacking the energy to resist —and giving in to the fears Kendra talked about. I wonder if we are sometimes enablers of the attitudes some men develop about expecting to have everything done for them—buttons sewn on, clothes washed and folded, meals cooked, house cleaned, children cared for, perpetuating the traditional gender division of labor. This can happen even though some husbands can talk egalitarianism very well, while closing their eyes to the practical implications of the concept.

That realization was driven home to me one day after the most excruciatingly painful two years of my life in which my husband had repeatedly told me he no longer loved me and wanted freedom from the confinement of marriage. He seemed like a different person from the one I thought I had married nearly three decades earlier. On the day he actually left, moving out his belongings and renting a truck to pick up some borrowed furniture to take to his new condo, he left me behind as a sobbing mess, having cried much of the day. When he returned to the house one more time in the early evening to pick up some odds and ends, he said, “I didn’t sort out any of my dirty laundry; I just left it in the hamper upstairs.” He suggested that I could sort it out or— better yet—I could just wash his clothes along with my clothes when I did the laundry. He said he could stop by in a day or two to pick it up.

A friend was standing there, giving me emotional support. She was aghast! As my husband drove off, she said, “You’re not going to do that, are you? Wash his clothes after the way he treated you? He has a new washer and dryer in his condo.” I said, “I don’t know. Maybe I should do it, not so much for him, but maybe just as a kindness— kindness to a human being?” At that, she grabbed my hand, marched me up the stairs, and stood me in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. She said, “What do you see there?” I was completely puzzled and didn’t say anything. She said, “ Well, I see a human being.”

It was clear that I needed to learn how to set boundaries and to show some kindness to myself and rid myself of the idea that it was “selfish” to do anything less than self-sacrifice. It was a true “Aha” moment.

We women need to tune out the incessant cultural and religious messages that are all around us (and inside us, even when we know better) — internalized messages that attempt to convince us that, because we are women, we are not really the full, equal human beings that God created us to be. We need to value ourselves. We need to ignore some of the messages that have been drummed into us to persuade us that our purpose on earth is to serve others in ways men are not willing to serve.  Or that tell us our talents, gifts, and intellectual capabilities are less important than those of men and thus the time and energy necessary for developing and using our capabilities can instead be justifiably diverted into household tasks to a greater degree than would be true for men.

Two pieces of advice
I know I’ve taken up all this space analyzing the problem without giving any of the practical advice Melanie was hoping for, but maybe seeing this whole issue in a larger context can be helpful in thinking it through. I do, however have two pieces of advice.

1. Relax and don’t accept blame. I want to support all that Kendra said about being more casual about housework, not allowing fear of outside judgments to rule us. Apart from taking care of common sense concerns related to hygiene (bathrooms do need to be cleaned sometimes!) or removing hazards such as items left on the floor or on stairs that someone could fall over, I think we can be much more relaxed about whether or not the house is spotless, and we need to stop worrying about being blamed if it isn’t. I figure if people come to visit, they come to visit me— not to conduct what we used to call a “white glove inspection” of my apartment! If they’re my friends, they’ll understand if everything isn’t perfectly tidy. If they just came to judge and criticize, they’re not really my friends, and I don’t care about their opinions. I want to be remembered for something much more than whether or not there was dust on the book shelves!

2. Housework is a family affair.
If a family lives in a home together, all members are responsible for keeping it up. It’s important for children to realize that the careers of both parents are important, and that Mom should not ever be considered a kind of resident servant! Parents and kids can have a family meeting and work out ways everybody can pitch in to keep the home comfortably tidy, picking up their own stuff, making their own beds, and so on. One of my sons and his wife have four children (all grown now), and I have been thrilled over the years to see how, from the time they were quite young, each child learned to do his or her own laundry. They were also responsible for cleaning their own rooms, packing their own lunches before catching the school bus, and performing other tasks around the home. I’ve been so proud of the way each one, now grown, has developed the self-confidence and sense of independence so important in navigating the adult world of college and employment.

I’m sure we’ll be revisiting this topic on FemFaith at other times in the future just as we have in the past (remember our “Learned Helplessness” discussion?) but each time we seem to explore new angles that I hope will give us and our readers something more to think about.

I arrived home from a business lunch today and did what I usually do.  Sat down at my desk and clicked on the TV while pulling up my email. Today the TV came on muted; and without looking up, I focused on the twenty messages clamoring for my attention.

Immediately, I noticed an email from a dear friend.  She had sent me the obituary of her father, who passed away yesterday.  It was much sooner than it was supposed to be; he had been told he’d have several more months.  But now, after just a few short weeks, he is gone, leaving an empty space here in this place we call our earthly home.  I hit reply and tried to figure out what I could possibly write to her that would express my sorrow for the situation—and my love for her.   I know that her family is forever changed.  As they sit down together tonight at dinner, they are a different family than they were the day before yesterday.  But I also know they will emerge from this personal tragedy even more deeply connected than they were before.  Moving through this situation will require they reinvent their family by recreating the way they love and support each other.  Their new creation will be rich and full, because they are beautiful, loving people.  

In the midst of this, I looked up and happened to notice what was on the TV.  It was the coverage of the unfolding tragedy in Boston, the explosion near the finish line at the Boston Marathon.  I turned up the sound.

Personal tragedy meets national tragedy.

It’s too early to know exactly what happened at Boston, but I do know that the explosions will leave empty spaces in many families, in many lives.  I also know that just like the day of the bombing in Oklahoma City, just like the day the planes were flown into the World Trade Center, this day will certainly change something about us.

I feel sorrow welling up from my heart and spilling out of me.

It is in these moments, the moments right after such tragedies, when each of us makes a decision about how we will respond.  It is in this time of stillness, perhaps of shock, in which we set our course.

And let us be acutely aware, as we move through this situation, that it provides an opportunity to reinvent ourselves.

Will we respond with anger, casting about for some group of people to blame, someone to hurt with our words or actions?  Or will we make the difficult decision to respond only with love, searching for ways to connect with each other as a people and support those affected, perhaps even directing our attention to creating a world of peace and equality where violence is never considered necessary to achieve an end?

We make this decision individually, and we make this decision as a people.

I will choose love. 

I pray for love and healing to rain down on my friend’s family as they recreate life without one so dear to them.  I pray for love and healing to wash over all of those who are suffering as a result of the tragedy in Boston.  And I pray for the fullness of Divine love and healing to pour down on those who initiated the Boston explosions so that they will never again feel the need to cause the suffering of others. 

Finally, and most importantly, I hope you will all join me in praying that our nation will be swept up in a great and miraculous current of love, refusing to meet violence with violence, instead standing shoulder to shoulder, arms around each other, taking full advantage of this moment to recreate the way this “One nation under God” responds to pain, tragedy, and loss. 

Marg Herder is the Office Manager and Web Developer for EEWC-Christian Feminism Today.  
More of her writing is available on this website, as well as on her own website, margherder.com.

© 2013 by Christian Feminism Today

Home > Book Reviews Index> A Year of Biblical Womanhood

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master”

by Rachel Held Evans. 
Thomas Nelson, 2012. 
321 pages.

Reviewed by Alena Amato Ruggerio

You need to know the name Rachel Held Evans: she’s currently one of our best hopes of getting the message of Christian feminism out into the discourse of popular culture.  She’s a 32-year-old Southern evangelical writer who speaks and blogs full time about the intersection of women, religion, and modern American life.  Although I don’t post to the flourishing community commenting on her blog entries at www.rachelheldevans.com, I did follow her through the writing and promotion of A Year of Biblical Womanhood, in which she demonstrates the absurdity of trying to take all the Bible’s teachings about women literally for one year.

This book received a lot of attention when it was published last October.  I cheered for the author as she brought her message to the Today Show and The View.  I shook my head over what she termed “Vaginagate,” the dustup caused when LifeWay Christian booksellers declined to carry the book, probably because Rachel dared to use the word “vagina” in telling the story of her teenage abstinence pledge.  I smacked my computer screen when she was slandered online by conservatives who felt she was lampooning the Bible instead of lovingly wrestling with its difficulties.  This isn’t the first time she’s been down that road: Rachel’s first book, Evolving in Monkey Town, was about growing up in Dayton, Tennessee, the location of the Scopes creationism vs. evolution trial.  And this isn’t the first time a writer has made a dramatic point by acting as their own test subject.  A. J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically and Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project are popular examples of the same kind of experiential journalism.  But there’s something about taking on the impossible task of fulfilling the Bible’s ostensible expectations of femininity that triggers extreme reactions in some Christians. 

The Virtues of a Biblical Woman

Each chapter tells the story of one month in the year-long project exploring a different characteristic of biblical womanhood. 

• •  Gentleness: in which Rachel does penance on her roof for every minute she’s spent gossiping, swearing, nagging, or complaining like a “contentious woman”
• •  Domesticity: in which Rachel cries on her kitchen floor, having lost her battle with Martha Stewart over standards of cooking and cleaning
• •  Obedience: in which Rachel calls her usually-egalitarian husband, Dan, “master” and memorializes the slaves, concubines, widows, wives, and daughters of the Bible whose lives were forfeit to their “masters”
• •  Valor: in which Rachel’s pursuit of the appellation “Proverbs 31 Woman” leads her to success in proclaiming that her husband is awesome at the city gate and to failure in knitting and sewing
• •  Beauty: in which Rachel’s fifteen-year-old self resists the titillation of the Song of Songs with a virginity pledge
• •  Modesty: in which Rachel compares her slouchy knit hat and peasant skirts to the garb and motives of her new Amish friends
• •  Purity: in which Rachel sleeps in a tent in her front yard to rid her home of ritual contamination during menstruation, and cleans the cupboards to rid her home of leaven during Passover
• •  Fertility: in which Rachel manages her fear of motherhood with parenting books and a Baby Think It Over doll
• •  Submission: in which Rachel gives up her equal spot on “Team Dan and Rachel” in favor of losing every disagreement to her husband
• •  Justice: in which Rachel endures caffeine detox migraines in the interest of fair trade, and travels to Bolivia to look poverty in the face
• •  Silence: in which Rachel practices spiritual contemplation at a Benedictine monastery, a Quaker meeting, and a turtle pond
• •  Grace: in which Rachel observes Rosh Hashanah with a ram’s horn and a bathroom full of challah bread

My synopsis is meant to reflect the book’s combination of serious engagement with the Bible’s problematic messages about women with the lighthearted wit of Rachel’s breezy narrative writing style.  Each chapter presents her monthly to-do checklist, the story of her experiences, insights from Bible commentaries and leading theologians, excerpts from Dan’s journal, pictures of Rachel throughout her adventures, URLs for further reading on her blog, and a closing Bible study on a woman from scripture. 

Strengths and Opportunities

This book would be a disarming way to introduce a conservative person to the idea that reading the Bible is always an interpretation, and that women and other subordinate groups are the losers when patriarchal interpretations prevail.  The author hits most of the familiar Christian feminist notes: raucous female converts in Corinth, Junia and Phoebe, the open-minded example of Jesus.  I wish she had swapped inclusive language for her exclusively-masculine pronouns for God throughout the book, included end-of-chapter links to other organizations and web resources instead of just to her own blog, questioned the category of “woman” itself with the latest in trans*theory, and owned the word “feminist.”  In her online FAQ she writes in response to the question of whether or not she’s a feminist: “I’m a thoroughly liberated beneficiary of the feminist movement, complete with a blossoming career and egalitarian marriage. I strongly support women at all levels of leadership in the church, home, and society, and am suspicious of anyone who would claim that the Bible presents just one ‘right way’ to be a woman.”  Thus Rachel lays down the reins just where Christian feminists like us are equipped to pick them up and invite her readers to take the next steps of theological education and development.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood is not just for women.  Dan Evans is characterized in the book as a partner who trusts, supports, and respects his wife.  Dan’s example is a reminder that one does not enact “biblical womanhood” in a vacuum; it is always a performance in relationship and community.

Alena Amato Ruggerio is the editor of Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, and Mothers (Lexington Books)
and an associate professor of communication at Southern Oregon University.  Alena says that In her
own “imperfect pursuit of biblical womanhood,” she is more Paula Deen than Martha Stewart.

© 2013 by EEWC-Christian Feminism Today

By Reta Halteman Finger

“Saint Paul” painted by Bartolomeo Montagna in 1482. Currently at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, Italy.

“Everything will turn out alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it isn’t the end.” Such Yogi Berra or Marigold Hotel wisdom applies well to the Apostle Paul’s rocky relationship with his Corinthian churches. “First” Corinthians wasn’t even the first letter he wrote to them. In 1 Corinthians 5:9-10 Paul refers to an earlier letter which at least some had misunderstood. We can be sure that the letter we have, with its radical vision of sharing honor, wealth, and power equally in the Body of Christ in Corinth, will be resisted by those with the most to lose.

Tracing the Clues

Fortunately, a trail of clues in both 1 and 2 Corinthians helps us reconstruct more of the relationship between these struggling congregations and their apostle, even though the clues are not easy to follow. A lot depends on how we unpack 2 Corinthians, which seems to be a collection of three or more letters—not necessarily in the right chronological order.

Soon after he sent the current letter, Paul dispatched his companion Timothy, with some anxiety, to see how things were going (1 Cor 16:10-11). This was Tim’s second visit, since he had earlier been treated with contempt (1 Cor 4:17-18). But it must not have been successful either, because Paul himself changes his plans in order to briefly visit Corinth again—but he is apparently insulted and humiliated by at least one person during that visit (2 Cor 1:23-2:11). Rather than returning and risking more personal confrontation, Paul writes a conciliatory “letter of tears” (2 Cor 2:4), which he sends with another co-worker, Titus. When Titus returns with good news of the Corinthians’ apology and repentance (2 Cor 7:5-16), Paul is overjoyed.

But at this point scholars differ on chronology. What does Paul mean by his “letter of tears”? Is that letter lost—or do we actually have it as chapters 10-13 of 2 Corinthians? There are enormous mood changes between the end of chapter 7, where Paul rejoices over the Corinthians’ attitude, and the beginning of chapter 10. (In between these two chapters are 8 and 9, which are all about the collection we discussed in the last lesson. They may comprise a different letter entirely.)

Trouble with Super-Apostles

In 2 Corinthians 10-11, Paul vigorously defends his ministry, using irony and biting sarcasm against those whom he calls “super-apostles” in 11:5. Apparently, other church leaders are making inroads into the Corinthian assemblies. They belittle Paul, saying, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is contemptible” (10:10). Throughout 2 Corinthians 10-13, Paul defends his upside-down ministry of God’s strength working through human weakness and suffering.

The “patronage pyramid” described in Lesson 4 of this series (“Crazy, Upside-down Wisdom”), as well as Paul’s forceful argument in 1 Corinthians 9 against accepting financial support from patrons, help us better imagine the cause of such conflict. Paul is convinced that Jesus’ gospel requires believers to share or lay aside whatever privileges they have which keep them from serving the common good in the Body of Christ. Although he has a right to financial support in his apostolic work, he refuses it to become a lower class manual laborer instead (Acts 18:1-3). He rejects patronage so that he is not obligated to those with wealth at the expense of the working classes. Clearly, the “super-apostles” do accept patronage, so they are honored while Paul is denigrated.

Which plot in this web of complex relationships do you prefer? Does 2 Corinthians 10-13 sound like the “letter of tears” which moved the Corinthians to the repentance described in 7:2- 16? Or did these super-apostles move in after Paul thought that Titus had effected reconciliation among them and with him? We cannot be sure.

A Final Resolution?

I confess to enjoying a good murder mystery now and then, where a reader can be assured that the mystery will be solved and justice served. However, real life is often full of messy, unresolved issues. The evidence of 1 and 2 Corinthians leaves us wondering “what really happened.”

In spite of the gaps and puzzles within the most complicated relationship Paul ever had with a church he planted, we find an important clue in his later letter to Christians in Rome. It appears Paul did make the longer visit he had promised (1 Cor 16:5-7). He apparently makes peace with his contentious house churches because he writes to the Roman Christians from Corinth within the next couple of years. He stays at the home of Gaius, a house church leader (1 Cor 1:14; Rom 16:23). The secretary Tertius transcribes the letter that he dictates (Rom 16:22). Both of them, along with Erastus, send greetings to believers in the capital city. In this letter there is no hint of the past history of conflict.

Questions for Reflection:

1. Knowing what you now know about Paul as a charismatic, emotional church leader, would you have liked to have him as your pastor? Why or why not?

2. What are the most important things you have learned from the study of 1 Corinthians that can be relevant to your life or the life of your church today?

Final note:

If you are part of a church school class or study group, you will find many additional insights into 1 Corinthians by role-playing Chloe’s house church, one of those receiving this letter. To help you with this, we’d like you to know about a new book to be published this spring, Creating a Scene in Corinth: A Simulation, by Reta Halteman Finger and George D. McClain (Herald Press, 2013). All background material and instructions for setting up a conflict-simulation are included, and slide presentations and additional web resources for teaching in college or seminary will be available through www.HeraldPress.com after the book’s publication. It may be the most exciting group Bible study you’ve ever had! 

(With responses by Kendra Weddle Irons and Melanie Springer Mock)

Much of the media buzz about Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, has focused less on what I consider the book’s intended message and more on the unending debates about whether women can combine marriage and children with pursuing a career outside the home—often boiled down to the overly simplistic question, “Can women have it all?” Apart from the fact that the question isn’t asked of men—nor is it even acknowledged that no one can possibly “have it all” (a point Sandberg herself makes)—I think it’s the wrong question and the wrong goal.

Rather, I think life is not about “having it all” but about “being it all”—all that we can possibly be (or as Nancy Hardesty and I suggested four decades ago through the title of our book, aspiring to be “all we’re meant to be”). For some women, that may mean one thing; for other women, something else. And it may vary during certain periods of our lives. But overall it means living up to our full potential as human beings made in God’s image, capable of both creating and relating.

Yet, often something stops us—holds us back from being all we’re meant to be. Years ago, during the time when I had a car, I started up the engine one day to get on my way to wherever I was going. The engine started right up, but the car wouldn’t budge. I checked the emergency brake; it was off. I got out and noticed the back tire was hot from the attempts to get it to move. I called my motor club and had the car towed to a repair shop. The mechanic later explained that the back brakes had somehow slipped out of alignment and the emergency brake cable had caught on something, locking up the wheel. No wonder I couldn’t go anywhere!

I think that’s what often happens to us as women as we expect to go forward. We think the brake has been disengaged. After all, here in the United States, many impediments to moving forward that formerly held women back have been removed through hard-won changes in laws, attitudes, and customs. And opportunities for women have opened up that in another time would have been impossible to imagine. This is not to deny that there are very real structural problems and systemic biases and work arrangements that still hinder women’s advancement. But often there’s something more hidden away that is stopping us, blocking our wheels from turning.

The “something hidden” is a belief system composed of internalized ideas that are part of female socialization. They’re what Jean Lipman-Blumen has called “control myths.” She named nine such “control myths,” and I can think of additional ones as well. We don’t have space here to deal with all of them, but we might want to examine just a few of them to see how they operate. Lipman-Blumen said that “once internalized, these myths become potent social mechanisms used by males and females to keep themselves and one another in their ‘appropriate’— but vastly unequal—places” (In Gender Roles and Power, Prentice-Hall, 1984, p. 75).

The late Brazilian educator Paulo Freire similarly observed that one of the ways oppressive systems operate is by “depositing myths indispensable to the preservation of the status quo.” (in Ch. 4 of his Pedagogy of the Oppressed). Patriarchy is one such oppressive system that has distributed such myths. (I’m not talking here about individual males here but patriarchy as a system of male power and privilege that views women as subordinate and secondary and that affects how we define ourselves and others. It hurts both women and men by the expectations it imposes.)

How do gender myths operate to keep us from being all we’re meant to be?
If, as a woman, you’ve ever found yourself doubting your competence and hesitating to even try some endeavor because you’re convinced a man could do it better, you might be buying into the belief that Lipman-Blumen calls Control Myth Number One: “Women are weak, passive, dependent, and fearful; men are strong, aggressive, independent, and fearless.”

If a woman displays what are considered “male traits”—the same qualities that are considered to be characteristic of a mature adult when gender is unspecified (such as strength, independence, assertiveness, and fearlessness) — she’s considered “unfeminine”and on the receiving end of insults and name-calling.

A recent example can be seen in responses to Senator Diane Feinstein’s standing up to Senator Ted Cruz as he condescendingly lectured her on the second amendment to the Constitution. A similar attitude showed up in responses to the testimony of outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she dared to display strength, grief, and justifiable anger (which would likely have been praised in a man) while being interrogated in a congressional hearing over the terrorist attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. A typical example of reactions to these strong women was this comment sent in after a report on a Fox News blog. The commenter said, “ Sorry Hillary and Feinstein, you can’t intimidate us with your aggressive retorts. Save it for your wimpy husbands, you dumb broads. We’re not impressed with your self images.”

Both of these illustrate what Kathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, calls “double binds.” Two of these “binds” facing women are illustrated in the examples cited in the preceding paragraph. In Jamieson’s words:

•  “Women who are considered feminine will be judged incompetent, and women who are competent, unfeminine.” 
•  And “women who speak out are [considered] immodest and will be shamed, while women who are silent will be ignored and dismissed.”  (In Double Binds by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 16.)

That brings us to another of the nine “control myths” on Lipmen-Blumen’s list that can keep us from living out our full potential and being all we were meant to be. It’s the myth that women talk too much. Believing the myth—and it is a myth (studies show men in mixed-sex groups talk more, initiate verbal comments more, and interrupt more than women)—women often don’t speak up “and thus also keep themselves from being perceived as knowledgeable,” says Lipmen-Blumen. Why do we do this? Why do we censor ourselves, hold our tongues, when being quiet prevents us from being seen as leaders? We’re afraid of being judged, not only by men but also by other women. Or we second guess ourselves and doubt our own capability and knowledge.

For Christian women, a lot of this comes from what we’ve been taught about certain biblical passages without regard to their historical and cultural context. So we internalize “let the women keep silent” literally. Or we accept without question the idea that women are by nature more nurturant, altruistic, and self-sacrificial and more moral than men —another of the control myths that Lupmen-Blumen cites. “This notion that women meet their own achievement needs through the success of others is strong,” she writes. She says that “by instilling women with morally valued but self-enfeebling attitudes and behavior, and men with expectations that women should assist others and work for little or no pay, the society ensures business as usual.”

One thing Kendra and Melanie do so well on their “Ain’t I a Woman” blog, often using satire, is to deconstruct some of the images that are taught as part of “biblical womanhood.”

I, for one, am glad that Sheryl Sandberg’s book is stimulating renewed conversations about these attitudes that are so deeply rooted in our society and that hold women back. I don’t understand the criticism that she is “blaming the victim” by pointing out that “in addition to the external barriers erected by society, women are hindered by barriers that exist within ourselves” and that “we hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.” She is not “speaking down” to women. “This is not a list of things other women have done. I have made every mistake on this list.” she writes. “At times, I still do.”

She emphasizes that we women need to help each other, work together, form a coalition for change. I agree, and I think this needs a lot more discussion, including about the very practical matters we can learn from each other about work of all kinds, careers, families, and life in all its fullness. How can we validate each other, encourage each other, and help each other be all we’re meant to be? I think, at this point, I’ll turn the question over to Kendra and Melanie and look forward to their wisdom.

Moving Beyond the Myths — A Response by Kendra Weddle Irons

As a young girl I probably began assimilating several myths about what it meant to be a girl long before fourth grade; however during fourth grade I clearly remember learning one of them then: boys are supposed to win. Since I grew up on a farm where we had dogs and cats, horses, and cattle, my sisters and I learned at a young age to be pretty self-sufficient. I vividly recall how on beautiful spring days, my younger sister who was enrolled in half-day kindergarten would quickly eat her lunch so she could take off across the pasture with tackle in tow in order to round up our horses so that when my older sister and I arrived home from school around 4 pm, we had time to ride for a couple of hours before Mom expected us back to help get dinner on the table.

Sure, we had things that scared us on the farm: rattle snakes that blended in with the dirt paths we walked; mice who always scurried into the shadows the moment we opened the barn door; a horse that bucked us off or ran out of control. And yet, we also knew that if we could conquer our fears; we had much to enjoy from our farm life, especially those long horse rides.

As much as I loved being on the farm, I also relished going to school where I sought to be the best student in my class, mostly because it meant you got to play games while the others caught up. In fourth grade, one of the benefits of finishing work ahead of time was the opportunity to play checkers. It was a race, really, to get through the work sheets and run to the back of the room to pick your checker color (I always chose red). It was in telling my parents one night about this checker playing that I learned I had violated the gender code. “Do you think the boys always want to lose to a girl?” my parents asked.

The myth that boys are better than girls (and should win even if it means girls should let them) was born in me that day, and as Letha points out, it has played a large part in my life, in part, because Christian teaching has reinforced this assumption in myriad ways.

Recently, for example, I listened to a Focus on the Family radio interview of Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Mary Kassian about their popular new Bible study: True Woman 101 Divine Design. This is not my first encounter with complementarianism (nor, I’m sure, my last) but what struck me as I listened to DeMoss and Kassian lash out against feminism was the fear they have for the movement, as if everything they deem unseemly or wrong about our culture is a direct result of the evil feminists.

Couching their message in the age-old assumption of divinely-ordained gender roles, DeMoss and Kassian assert binary gender distinctions are, in fact, biblical principles that can and should be applied to each generation. And, while they admit application of these principles will be different for each different situation, they also claim some applications are simply more right than others as in a man will always be better at earning a living and taking the lead and a woman will always be happier in the home rearing children and providing nurture to those around her. Sure, there could be others ways of living, but they are obviously less godly than this universal model.

For DeMoss and Kassian if gender roles are jettisoned, their entire conceptions about God will follow and this fragility creates their fear and fuels their urgency. Similarly, over the course of the last couple of weeks as I have listened to the strident reactions to Sheryl Sandberg and Lean In, I have wondered if this reaction isn’t also emerging from a place of fear, in this case, fear of a society where power is equally shared, where women are just as often in places of leadership as men, where it isn’t a rare occasion that cultural authorities accurately represent the culture itself, and where our faith communities are shaped by women and their ideas and experiences just as much as they have been shaped by men.

Letha’s analysis that the media discussion over Sandberg’s book has largely missed the point rings true. As long as we continue to have these debates over “doing” we will never move forward to the more important point of “being,” as in embracing the true reality of what it means to be people made in the image of God, not figures manipulated into someone’s notion of gender roles.

I imagine Sandberg’s book, if taken seriously, is a worthy tool to help women embrace their full talents and to move beyond the gender myths our culture perpetuates. And even though the church at large unfortunately does more to support and undergird these myths than to deconstruct them, I am grateful the EEWC is a community that encourages all people to embrace our divine gifts and provides numerous ways in which we can share them with others.

When Leaning In Means Pushing Back — A response by Melanie Springer Mock

March has not been a great month for women in the news. As Letha pointed out, media buzz about Sheryl Sandberg has rehashed tired ground about women’s work/life balance. Even before the official release of Lean In, Sandberg was taking it in the chops, with negative reviews from feminist sympathizers and opponents alike.

And then, on March 17, two teenage football players were found guilty of raping another teenager in Steubenville, Ohio. Both defendants received a minimum one-year sentence for the August 2012 crime, in which the young men allegedly drove an intoxicated 16-year-old girl to several parties, raped her, and texted photos and a video of her to friends.

Media response to the sentencing was swift. And, stunningly, much of it was sympathetic to the football players who had been found guilty of perpetuating a heinous crime. On CNN, for example, reports emerging immediately after the court sentencing were overwhelming focused on the accused, with reporters Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow discussing in detail the emotional courtroom outbursts of the teenaged boys whose lives had been ruined by the sentencing.

At one point, after viewing coverage of the boys sobbing in court, Harlow says it was “incredibly difficult” to be an observer “as these two young men — who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students — literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.” Little mention was made of the victim, whose life as she knew it was no doubt ruined by the young men with promising futures; no word either on her own promising future, transformed by an August night.

Although CNN has taken the brunt of criticism for its Steubenville coverage (see, for example, this Huffington Post article), plenty of folks have expressed sympathy for the football players and their ruined destinies. The blame-the-victim mentality, perpetuated by a rape culture, assumes women ask for what they get; and because the girl in question was drunk that August night, she does not deserve sympathy. Thus she has received death threats for her accusation of rape, while the Steubenville football players have been lauded as promising young men who just happened to rape a woman.

The Steubenville case and its aftermath seem, to me, a powerful (and sobering) reflection of the control myths about which Letha writes.

In the same week but on a much smaller scale, another example of victim blaming occurred in the coverage of a “Tweet heard round the tech community.” Adria Richards, a “developer evangelist,” was at a technology conference called the PyCon, and heard several men making sexist jokes behind her during a plenary session. Richards took a photo of the men and sent it out on Twitter with the text “Not cool. Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and ‘big’ dongles. Right behind me.” She followed this with several more Tweets, indicating her location in the large conference hall and reminding conference organizers of their code of conduct, which forbade such discrimination. Within moments, organizers found the men and removed them from the hall; the men were subsequently fired from their positions with a tech company.

As was, a few days later, Richards.

Although Jezebel and a Mercury News articles say the firing will be hard to defend, according to Jim Franklin, CEO of SendGrid, the company that had employed Adria Ricards, her decision “to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line. Publicly shaming the offenders — and bystanders — was not the appropriate way to handle the situation. … Needless to say, a heated public debate ensued. The discourse, productive at times, quickly spiraled into extreme vitriol.” (From Jim Franklin’s comments on the company’s blog as quoted in a report by Dan Nakaso for The Mercury News.)

The vitriol was focused predominantly on Richards, rather than on the men whose sexist jokes initiated the “public debate.” In comments on her own website, Richards was blamed for taking things too seriously, for lacking any sense of humor, for being a prude. “This is a satire of what an overzealous feminist would do, right?” someone asks because, of course, only an “overzealous feminist” would call out sexism when she sees it.

In a male-dominated field like technology, Richards was already a minority, dealing with a culture that was (at best benevolently) hostile to women’s voices. According to another woman working in technology and responding to a Jezebel article, “I get sexually harassed or treated like I’m a moron because I’m a woman frequently. I don’t complain about it officially because there IS no real way to complain about it officially. No rules, no protocol, and honestly, no way to do it in a way that doesn’t jeopardize yourself professionally and open yourself up to harassment and being blackballed. So Ms Richards came up with her own way to handle it, because there is basically no other way to deal. I guarantee you she knew the risks and backlash she faced, and I respect her at least standing up knowing this.”

Both the Steubenville and the PyCon events—and the media coverage of those events—suggest the control myths about which Letha writes remain in full-force, despite the Sheryl Sandbergs of the world, urging women to “Lean in” and be all they were meant to be. This month’s media coverage is no exception; I see these myths play out in the media all the time. I see them play out in my own life, and in that of my friends.

I also see them play out in the lives of my students, faced with messages about who and what they can be as young Christian women. Kendra and I started our Ain’t I a Woman blog with our students in mind, hoping that we could help deconstruct Christian popular culture so these women could see the mythologies they believe for what they are: mythologies, rather than biblical mandates.

Despite this month’s media coverage that has filled me with despair, I’ve also seen signs of hope this month that people are pushing back against these messages, and succeeding. I witnessed signs of hope in the many, many writers who called foul on the Steubenville media coverage, and whose message of outrage and of sympathy for the victim spread out over the social networking ether waves.

I saw hope here on my own campus when Rachel Held Evans, one of the hottest voices in Christian egalitarianism, spoke in chapel and was well received for her message that the Bible praises women of valor, rather than condemning women to the submissive roles evangelicals force them into. I saw hope in the clusters of women and men who lingered after chapel to talk with Rachel and with each other about the power of her message and of their longing to be all they were meant to be.

And I saw hope last Tuesday night, when I joined several young women at my campus for a panel discussion on women, work, and religion. About 75 students came out on a cold and rainy evening, right before spring break, to hear us dialogue about what it means to be a feminist, a person of faith, and a woman faced with those “controlling myths” Letha writes about.

I was impressed with my co-panelists’ answers: one, an African-American student who has blossomed in her four years at George Fox University, becoming a strong and articulate feminist who will make a change in the world; the other, a Muslim woman from Afghanistan and a feminist, who has endured four years at an Evangelical university and will return to a country with its own controlling myths about what and who women should be. In the voices of these women—and in the nods of assent from young men and women in the audience—I see signs that things will change, and are changing.

There are people everywhere pushing back against the cultural mythologies that have, for too long, told women who and what they could and could not be. So that despite a bad month in the media, when women are blamed for rapes, and condemned for calling out sexism in their industries, and critiqued for telling women to “lean in,” I still have hope that someday soon, young women and men will truly be free to be all God intended them to be.