Christianity and feminism

Are Christianity and the Bible inherently sexist and repressive to women, forcing them into second place and submission to men?

Over the centuries the church has often sadly colluded with the sexism of a male-dominated society. But I believe that has little to do with the example or teaching of Christ or the Bible as a whole.

Women in the New Testament

Women play a prominent and vital role in the New Testament (as indeed in the Old). Mary is chosen to be the mother of the Saviour. Anna is a respected prophetess and is among the first to know and tell about the birth of Jesus. Women are the first witnesses of Christ's resurrection. Jesus' disciples and closest friends include many women and he often singles them out for particular praise (in contrast to the male disciples who frequently fail to understand his teaching). Jesus speaks to women as social and intellectual equals - for example the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. And women actually fund and finance Jesus' ministry, enabling it to take place at all.

Women are also important and honoured in the early church. Several host churches in their own houses and clearly hold positions of leadership. Paul, often misrepresented as a misogynist, crucially wrote that in Christ 'there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus'.

Women in the Old Testament

Even in the Old Testament, despite the deeply patriarchal society women are accorded far more status than is often realised. Two whole books of the Bible - Ruth and Esther - bear the names of women who played a vital role in Israel's history, in Esther's case saving the Jewish people from massacre. Deborah in the book of Judges is a shining example of a strong, powerful and brilliant leader who leads her people into victory. In the same book, the woman Jael is commended for killing Sisera, the enemy of the Israelites.

Other strong and brave women of the Old Testament include Moses' sister Miriam and Rahab who sheltered the Jewish spies in Jericho; and there are countless other examples.

A male God?

Of course, there is another side to the treatment of women and femininity in the Bible and that needs to answered.

Most fundamentally, isn't God always depicted as male? Actually no. The Old Testament uses a number of feminine metaphors and nouns to describe God - for example speaking of God's 'womb', of his motherly care, and using the same word for God (translated 'helper') as is used of Eve in Genesis. In the very first chapter of the Bible, both male and female are equally made in the image of God: 'In the image of God he created [people]; male and female he created them'.

In the book of Proverbs Wisdom is personified as female, in a passage that is usually interpreted as representing Christ. Of course when Christ came it was as a man - but the sad reality is that he had to; had he come as a woman to 1st-century Israel/Palestine, he could have had no public ministry and could never have fulfilled the role he needed to.

Paul

So what of the apostle Paul saying that women should obey and submit to their husbands, remain quiet in church and not teach? Firstly let's remember that he also said that all believers, male and female, should submit to one another in love. Secondly, the context for wives obeying their husbands was that the husband must first love his wife as Christ loved the church, giving himself as an offering for her. And thirdly, the teaching about women remaining quiet and not being allowed to teach must have been dealing with a very specific social/cultural context rather than a universal command - for Paul himself commended and worked closely with a number of women in leadership positions in the early church.

In all this we must also remember that even the New Testament - let alone the Old - was written nearly 2000 years ago in an unimaginably different world and culture to our own.

Vive la difference?

So the overwhelming Christian view seems to me to be that women and men are of equal worth and status, one in Christ.

This does not of course deny that there are differences, both physiological and psychological, between the sexes, though these can often be overplayed. Men can of course never be mothers, though they can nurture; women can never fully be fathers, though they are often called upon to cover both roles. And perhaps therefore there may be some roles that - on the whole - women will fill rather better than men and vice versa. However, to my mind there is no question that women can and should equally be able to teach, lead and pastor within the Christian community.