Sarah Bessey is a rising star in the
world of Christian writing. Later this month DLT publish her second book, Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving
Faith. This is an extract from her acclaimed debut, Jesus Feminist: God’s Radical Notion That Women Are People Too,
where she eloquently explains the link between Jesus and feminism ...
Jesus made
a feminist out of me. It’s true. I can’t make apologies for it, even though I
know that Jesus plus feminist might be the one label that
could alienate almost everyone. I understand that – I do.
I know
feminism carries a lot of baggage, particularly within the evangelical church.
There are the stereotypes: shrill killjoys, man-haters, and rabid
abortion-pushers, extreme lesbians, terrifying some of us on cable news
programs, deriding motherhood and homemaking. Feminism has been blamed for the
breakdown of the nuclear family, day care, physical and abuse, hurricanes, the downfall
of “real manhood,” the decline of the Christian Church in Western society, and
spectacularly bad television. Most of what has passed for a description of
feminism is fear-mongering misinformation.
In some
circles, using the word feminist is
the equivalent of an f-bomb dropped in church – outrageous, offensive. It’s
likely some people saw this book sitting on the shelf and figured they knew
what sort of author was behind the words written here: a bitter man-hater
arguing that men and women had no discernable differences, a ferocious and humourless
woman, perhaps, and so it’s no wonder they reacted at the sight of Jesus alongside feminist like someone had raked long fingernails across a
chalkboard. Who could blame them with the lines we’ve been fed about feminists
for so long?
It’s a risk
to use the word feminism – know. But it’s a risk I’d like you to take
with me. Me? I like the word feminist,
even if it worries people or causes a bit of pearl clutching. The word feminist does not frighten or offend me:
in fact, I’d like to see the Church (re)claim it.
Some people
think the concept of a Christian feminist is a misnomer, an embarrassing and
misguided capitulation to our secular culture. It might surprise anti-feminists
and an-ti-Christians equally to know that feminism’s roots are tangled up with
the strong Christian women’s commitments to the temperance movement, suffragist
movements, and in America
and England
in particular, the abolitionist movements of the nineteenth century. There is a
rich tradition of pro-life feminism, which continues today. Christian feminism
predates the works of second- and third-wave secular feminist writers, such as
Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, Gloria Steinem, Rebecca Walker, and Naomi
Wolf. Feminism is complicated and it varies for each person, much like
Christianity. It’s not necessary to subscribe to all the diverse – and contrary
– opinions within feminism to call oneself a feminist.
Feminism
gained popularity as a result of “secular” work and scholarship, but the line
between sacred and secular is man-made. Because God is the source of truth,
Christians can still give thanks to God for the good works associated with
feminism, such as the gaining of status for women as “persons” under the law,
voting, owning property, and defending them-selves in a court of law against
domestic violence and rape. As Canadian theologian Dr. John G. Stackhouse Jr.
says, “Christian feminists can celebrate any sort of feminism that brings more
justice and human flourishing to the world, no matter who is bringing it, since
we recognize the hand of God in all that is good.” Modern Christian feminism is
alive and well, from social justice movements to seminaries and churches to
suburban living rooms, worldwide.
At the
core, feminism simply consists of the radical notion that women are people,
too. Feminism only means we champion the dignity, rights, responsibilities, and
glories of women as equal in importance – not greater than, but certainly not
less than – to those of men, and we refuse discrimination against women.
Several
years ago, when I began to refer to myself as a feminist, a few Christians
raised their eyebrows and asked, “What kind
of feminist exactly?” off the top of my head, I laughed and said, “oh, a Jesus
feminist!” It stuck, in a cheeky sort of way, and now I call myself a Jesus
feminist because to me, the qualifier means I am a feminist precisely because of my life-long commitment to
Jesus and his Way.
Patriarchy
is not God’s dream for humanity. I’ll say that again, louder, and I’ll stand up
beside our small bonfire and shout it out loud. I’ll scare the starfish and the
powerful alike: patriarchy is not God’s dream for humanity. It never was; it
never will be.
Instead, in
Christ, and because of Christ, we are invited to participate in the kingdom
of God through redemptive
movement – for both men and women – toward equality and freedom. We can choose
to move with God, further into justice and wholeness, or we can choose to prop
up the world’s dead systems, baptizing injustice and power in sacred language.
Feminism is just one way to participate in this redemptive movement.
In the
context of our conversation here, two common labels used regarding the roles
and voices of women in the church today, for better or for worse, are egalitarian and complementarian.
In general,
according to theologian Carolyn Custis James, egalitarians “believe that
leadership is not determined by gender but by the gifting and calling of the
Holy Spirit, and that God calls all believers to submit to one another.” In contrast,
complementarians “believe the Bible establishes male authority over women, making
male leadership the biblical standard.”
Both sides
can treat the Bible like a weapon. On both sides, there are extremists and
dogmatists. We attempt to outdo each other with proof texts and apologetics,
and I’ve heard it said that there is no more hateful person than a Christian
who thinks you’ve got your theology wrong. In our hunger to be right, we
memorize arguments, ready to spit them out at a moment’s notice. Sadly, we reduce
each other, brothers and sisters, to straw men arguments, and brand each other
“enemies of the gospel.”
I know some
people like to poke holes in each other’s arguments, pointing out
inconsistencies and trading jabs of verses and scholars and church history like
scrappy boxers. Some do this well, with kind skill and mutual respect, and it’s
a joy to behold as they learn from each other. others seem a bit more like mud
wrestlers, hanging out on blogs or Facebook comment sections, at boardroom
tables or in classrooms, at coffee shops or Christian bookstore shelves, with a
lot of outrage – all in an effort to figure out how the other guy is wrong;
it’s theology as a fight-to-the-death competition.
And all
God’s people said, ”That’s exhausting.”
So could we
agree on one quick thing before I keep going? I think the family of God is big
and diverse, beautiful and global. So these dogmatic labels, while sometimes
useful for discussion in books and classes, aren’t always the right boundaries
for a life or a relationship. Most of us live somewhere in the in-between.
Let’s
agree, for just a little while anyway, that both sides are probably wrong and
right in some ways. I’m probably wrong, you’re probably wrong, and the opposite
is true, because we still see through a glass, darkly. I want to approach the
mysteries of God and the unique experiences of humanity with wonder and
humility and a listener’s heart.
I have
tried to stop caring about the big dust-ups between complementarians and
egalitarians. I’m pretty sure my purpose here on earth isn’t to win arguments
or perform hermeneutical gymnastics to impress the wealthiest 2 percent of the
world. I don’t think God is glorified by tightly crafted arguments wielded as
weaponry. Besides, I highly doubt this one slim book by a happy-clappy
starry-eyed Jesus-loving Canadian mama will put any of this debate to bed when
so many scholars and smarter- than-me people continue to debate and argue.
That’s not what I’m after.
After years
of reading the Gospels and the full canon of Scripture, here is, very simply,
what I learned about Jesus and the ladies: he loves us. He loves us. on our own
terms. He treats us as equals to the men around him; he listens; he does not
belittle; he honours us; he challenges us; he teaches us; he includes us – calls
us all beloved. Gloriously, this flies in the face of the cultural expectations
of his time – and even our own time. Scholar David Joel Hamilton calls Jesus’
words and actions toward women “controversial, provocative, even
revolutionary.”
Jesus loves
us.
In a time
when women were almost silent or invisible in literature, Scripture affirms and
celebrates women. Women were a part of Jesus’ teaching, part of his life. Women
were there for all of it.
Mary, the
mother of God, was a teenage girl in an occupied land when she became pregnant
with the Prince of Peace, and as Rachel Held Evans points out, Scripture
emphasizes that her worthiness is in her obedience “not to a man, not to a
culture, not even to a cause or a religion, but to the creative work of a God
who lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with good things.”
Even Mary’s
Magnificat is surprisingly subversive and bold, isn’t it? In the face of
evidence to the contrary, she sings how she is blessed, how God lifts up the
lowly, filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty.
Throughout
the records of the Gospels, I saw how Jesus didn’t treat women any differently
than men, and I liked that. We weren’t too precious for words, dainty like fine
china. We received no free pass or delicate worries about our ability to
understand or contribute or work. Women were not too sweet or weak for the
conviction of the Holy Spirit, or too manipulative and prone to jealousy,
insecurity, and deception to push back the kingdom of darkness. Jesus did not
patronize, and he did not condescend.
Just like
men, women need redemption. We all need the Cross of Jesus Christ, and we all
need to follow him in the Way of life everlasting. In the words and actions of
Christ as re-corded in Scripture, we see what “neither male nor female, Jew nor
Greek, slave nor free” looks like in real, walking-around life.
During his
time on earth, Jesus subverted the social norms dictating how a rabbi spoke to
women, to the rich, the powerful, the housewife, the mother-in-law, the
despised, the prostitute, the adulteress, the mentally ill and demon possessed,
the poor. He spoke to women directly, instead of through their male-headship
standards and contrary to the order of the day (and even of some religious
sects today).
No, it was
just him, incarnation of three-in-one on one. Women were not excluded or
exempted from the community of God. Women stood before God on their own soul’s
feet, and he called us, gathered us, as his own.
When they
threw the woman caught in adultery down into the dust at Jesus’ feet and tried
to use her shame to trap him, he levelled the playing field for both sin and
marriage. There aren’t too many of us women who don’t imagine ourselves there,
exposed, used, defiant or broken – sometimes both – and humiliated. And he,
bless his name, restored, forgave, protected, drew a shield of grace around her
with his dusty fingertip; and her accusers vanished. “Go,” he said, “and sin no
more.”
When the
woman with the issue of blood reached out to touch the hem of his garment, Jesus
did not respond with frustration. No, he touched her in return, praised her
faith, set her free without recoiling.”
When Jesus
healed the woman who was bent over, he did it in the synagogue, in full view.
He called her “daughter of Abraham,” which likely sent a shock wave through the
room; it was the first time the phrase had ever been spoken. People had only
ever heard of “sons of Abraham” – never daughters. But at the sound of Jesus’
words daughter of Abraham, he gave
her a place to stand alongside the sons, especially the ones snarling with
their sense of ownership and exclusivity over it all, watching. In him, you are
part of the family; you always were part of the family.
When Mary
of Bethany sat at his feet, she was in the posture of a rabbinical pupil. Men
and women rarely sat together, let alone for religious training, but there she
was among them, at his feet. She was formally learning from him, the way the
sons of Abraham had always sat – the daughters never had that spot. Even after
Martha tried to remind her of her duties and responsibilities to their guests, Jesus
defended her right to learn as his disciple; he honoured her choice as the
better one and said, “It will not be taken away from her.”
When Mary,
the sister of Lazarus, reproached Jesus after her brother’s death, he wept. In
fact, he privately taught her one of the central tenets of our faith – the same
thing he taught Peter: “I am the resurrection and the life”; this is the rock
upon which he builds his church. Martha received this teaching, too; she
believed him, and where would we be if she hadn’t shared what she heard from
the lips of her beloved friend and Saviour?
When the
Samaritan woman at the well met Jesus, he treated her like any other thirsty soul
needing the living water. She was leading a life that likely generated the hiss
of shame and eyes of judgment. She was among the least valued and most dishonoured
of her day. Yet Jesus engaged her in serious theological discussion; in fact,
hers is the longest personal conversation with Jesus ever recorded in
Scripture. It was also the first time that the words “I am the Messiah” were
spoken from his lips, and she became an evangelist. She told her story. She
told of Jesus, and many were saved. When the disciples expressed their surprise
at this turn, Jesus was matter-of-fact: this is simply the way of things.
When Jesus
finished teaching in a synagogue one day, a woman called out from the audience,
“God bless your mother – the womb from which you came, and the breasts that
nursed you!” Yet Jesus replied to this common blessing with “But even more
blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.” Women
aren’t simply or only blessed by giving birth to greatness; no, we are all
blessed when we hear the Word of God – Jesus – and put it into practice. We
don’t rely on second hand blessings in Jesus.
We also see
seven women in the Gospels described with the Greek verb diakoneo, which means to minister or to serve. It’s “the same one
used to describe the ministry of the seven men appointed to leadership in the
early church.” These women were Peter’s mother-in-law; Mary Magdalene; Mary,
the mother of Jesus and Joseph; Salome, the mother of Zebedee’s sons; Joanna,
the wife of Chuza; Susanna; and Martha, the sister of Mary and Lazarus.
Even though
the word of a woman was not considered sufficient proof in court, Mary
Magdalene was the first witness of the resurrected Christ and the first
preacher of the Resurrection. Jesus commanded her to go tell his brothers, the
disciples, that he was returning to “my Father and your Father, to my God and
your God.” Before the male disciples even knew he was breathing, Jesus sent a
woman to proclaim the good news: he is risen! The last shall be first, again,
always.
The women
of the gospel narrative ministered to Jesus, and they ministered with him. The
lack of women among the twelve disciples
isn’t prescriptive or a precedent for exclusion of women any more than the
choice of twelve Jewish men excludes Gentile men from leadership.
We can miss
the crazy beauty of it because of the lack of fanfare in Scripture. Women were
simply there, part of the revolution of love, sometimes unnamed, sometimes in
the background, sometimes the receiver, sometimes the giver—just like every
other man in Scripture, to be engaged on their own merit in the midst of their
own story.
Jesus
thinks women are people, too.
This is an
extract from Jesus Feminist: God’s Radical Notion That Women Are People Too by Sarah Bessey. It is available
in paperback, priced £10.99. Sarah’s second book – Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith is coming out
later this month.
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