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“Why The Silence?” Forgive me the Cynicism … (on Women in the Church)

By
December 4, 2011
Faith & (Dis)Belief, Feminism, My Story
7 Comments

I don’t know about you, but when I first read this it shocked and appalled me.

During the times of Jesus, the religious leaders prayed at least three times a day and always thanked God for three specific things:

  • Thank God that I am a Jew and not a Gentile.
  • Thank God that I am free and not a slave.
  • Thank God that I am a man and NOT a woman.

In the Babylonian Talmud, a Rabbi still says that one is obliged to recite the following three berakhot daily: “Who has made me a Jew”, “who has not made me a woman”, “who has not made me an ignoramus.”

Ouch!  I’ll bet a lot of men in seminary today secretly thank God they are not a woman or an ignoramus, that is if they think of women at all.

I love pastor Eugene Cho’s reflection thanking God he is a man (tongue in cheek kind of) saying:

“There’s great privilege and power in simply being a man. This is why I contend that the treatment of women is the oldest injustice in human history. We can talk equality and equity all day long and while we can acknowledge how far we’ve come, we still clearly live – even in 2011 – where there’s great advantage in simply being a man.”

This is why the message of Jesus is so powerful.

The apostle Paul in Galatians 3:28 subverted the dominant worldview by saying in the Kingdom of God, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  Powerful, meaningful words to me of the way God intended things and what he promises to restore in us all.  And yet, I easily become discouraged about the state of things.

I needed prudence yesterday when within the same hour I read two very different posts.

One was this post by a pastor saying that women should not read scripture in church.  Apparently, according to this writer, women are not to read scripture out loud in public. WOW.   I post it just to give perspective to some of my more progressive and enlightened friends about why I always seem concerned with women in the church.  It’s sexist crap  and I found myself  wishing a Bible scholar like Scot McKnight, or Sharon Hodde Miller, or Mary Elizabeth Fisher would please take him on.  I wrote him asking where he got the idea that only MEN should be the ones to do public reading of scripture.  It was is a sincere question as a Christ follower who loves scripture passionately, because I have never seen anything there that prescribes such an action.  He promised to write on it soon.

And then I saw this ebook by one of those wonderful people by Scot McKnight, titled Junia is Not Alone. You must pick it up.  You must read it.  He encourages more women to study, research and speak out on “women in the ancient world, about women in the early church, and women in church history … many whose stories are untold.” Amen!

Amazon says:

It tells the story of Junia, a female apostle honored by Paul in his Letter to the Romans—and then silenced and forgotten for most of church history. But Junia’s tragedy is not hers alone. She’s joined by fellow women in the Bible whose stories of bold leadership have been overlooked. She’s in the company of visionary women of God throughout the centuries whose names we’ve forgotten, whose stories go untold, and whose witness we neglect to celebrate.  But Junia is also joined by women today—women who are no longer silent and who are experiencing a re-voicing as they respond to God’s call to lead us into all truth.

Scot says:

Moving toward my second decade of teaching college students, more than half of whom grow up in a church, of this I am certain: churches don’t talk about the women of the Bible. Of Mary mother of Jesus they have heard, and even then not all of what they have heard is accurate. But of the other woman saints of the Bible, including Miriam, the prophetic national music director, or Esther, the dancing queen, or Phoebe, the benefactor of Paul’s missions, or Priscilla, the teacher, they’ve heard almost nothing.

Why the silence?

Why do we consider the mother/wife of Proverbs 31 an ideal female image but shush the language of the romantic Shulammite woman of the Song of Songs? Why are we so obsessed with studying the “subordination” of women to men but not a woman like Deborah, who subordinated men and enemies? Why do we believe that we are called to live out Pentecost’s vision of Spirit-shaped life but ignore what Peter predicted would happen? That “(i)n the last days… your sons and daughters will prophesy…” and that “(e)ven on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit.”

You can buy the ebook for $2.99.

Sometimes God answers your prayers in strange ways.

Not a direct response obviously, but rather this was an encouragement to me.  Women are quite literally being silenced in the church by men like Tim Challies and Piper who talks about women’s submission even with in abusive marriages.  And movements like Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church and his crazy notions about men and women.

In my article, The Voice of The Feminine I said:

I’ve been thinking about the lack of presence and example of women in the Church.  That Sunday* at my church in particular, women were simply spectators, the audience, the bystanders, the recipients and beneficiaries.

And the more I thought I could not remember the last time one of the teaching pastors suggested a book they were reading written by a woman.  Women are never quoted in my church.  Female theologians or scholars are never referenced or even mentioned, probably because the pastors don’t read them.  I can’t remember the last time, if ever, a pastor in my church has suggested or referred to or quoted a female theologian, religious author, or historian.  Am I the only one that notices these things?

The entire thing makes me very sad.  And so tired.  I am tired of the male dominated culture on the platform, as authors, as experts, as theologians, as speakers at conferences and in the Church at large. Considering women are half the church (some would say more) I do not buy the argument that there aren’t capable women to select from, though I’ve been told that very thing.  “The women haven’t risen up who have the gift of teaching.”

Risen up?   To be honest, one would think in a service-by-gifts based church there must not be any qualified gifted female teachers.   I attend an EFCA church of 5,000. You do the math.

*this is not always true!

But there are wonderful people who are articulating a different reality.  And I am most grateful to them. Perhaps in the coming weeks I will try to highlight more of them.

I worry at times that I think about this topic too much.  My overwhelming focus when it comes to thinking about injustice is the place of women in the church, their identity before God and whether they are using those talents for the purposes of the Kingdom.  I care about whether women, my daughters, who are made in God’s image too, know that they are indeed made to be that way.  I think about it all the time.  How much is too much?

Theologian Willard Swartley talks about the degree to which our ideologies warp our reading of Scripture.

 ”Our willingness to be changed by what we read, to let the Bible function as a “window” through which  we see beyond self-interested ideologies, and not a “mirror” which simply reflects back to us what we want it to show.  Biblical interpretation, if it is worthy to be so called, will challenge the ideology of the interpreter.  It can and will lead to change, because people do not come to the text thinking as God thinks, or even as the people of God thought in serving as agents of divine revelation.  Interpreters [must] listen to the text carefully enough not to like it.  [When they do so] it powerfully demonstrates that the text’s message has been heard and respected.”

This is challenging because I am full of self-interest when it comes to being a Christian woman.  I am a proud woman and this is my tribe which I feel a responsibility to care for, not because I crave authority, but because I long to see every women and girl carrying out every gift from God in their lives, not just in the marketplace, but within the church!  I am hopeful that this will happen in my lifetime.

Much of the church is stifling more than half of the church  and our “interpretations” are silencing many incredible women.  My heart weeps with that thought.

MHH

Other things I have written on the subject:

There is more, just search for WOMEN in the categories.

The F-word is a Dirty Word in the Church

By
November 30, 2011
Feminism, My Story
6 Comments

I have had something percolating for a while — thoughts on being a woman in the church.

  • It is good to be human. But is it good to be a woman in the church?  
  • And what about the f-word?  It’s hard to be a feminist in the Evangelical church. 
  • Do you ever wonder why people of faith don’t talk more about how Jesus treated women?   

 I keep picking at the edges of it, writing, and rewriting.  Here is just a few paragraphs…

It is difficult and painful to be on the faith journey as a Christian Feminist woman who grew up in the evangelical church.  At first, for me, as I broadened my perspective.  I was cautious, suspicious even.  Mostly I was fearful because of what I had been taught.  And I’ll admit it, even angry at some of the assumptions that people made about what the Bible teaches.  It seemed to me that these conclusions were drawn without being willing to actually study it.

As I felt an internal pull, a tugging of my heart toward the truth, I was afraid.  Whereas I had been especially affirmed and promoted at work, at church it was crystal clear that this was not to be expected.  Women were “supposed” to do the receiving and watch men do the vital ministry of teaching and leading the church.

But more than anything, I just wanted other people to talk to about what I heard God stirring inside me.  I could not find anyone to talk to about it.  So I began the lonely venture of studying the scriptures for myself.  I also read theologians, including feminist theologians, with heartfelt trepidation, fearing that I may end up leaving the evangelical church based on what I learned.

The f-word is a dirty word in the Church. 

I went back early this morning to a letter I wrote to my elders last year.   I put everything in those pages, there for them to take in.  My heart out there on the page.  I was told by the elders of my church, not now.  Just wait.  Be patient.  And I think I hear the Lord saying, Sh…………  Stop.  Wait.  Just wait…………..  And be quiet a while.  I have a sense that he wants to work on my heart, my lack of forgiveness, and anger, and so though I have pages and pages I’m waiting.   

In the meantime…

I read a beautiful post on Eugene Cho’s blog that I resonated with greatly.  Pastor Cho is also a great advocate for women.  The article by Dr. Michelle Garred, who is a researcher and consultant in international peace building, talks about experiences at a Christian event as a recently married and yet professional woman, and asks compellingly:

Why does this distorted social setting appear to pit me in competition against my husband and best friend? Why can’t someone meet a couple and assume that these two inter-dependent individuals both have something to offer? Why should I be forced to wield my trump cards as instruments of power, making conversation into a contact sport? Most importantly, what about the many women who don’t have trump cards, but who do have boundless gifts to be shared with the Church? Who sees those women? And who hears them?

I found myself telling the author …

“Thank you for writing so simply and eloquently, with a gentleness that isn’t angry. I found myself resonating loudly! And I have to say that once you lose the credentials of “important work” and you are a “wife” then you seem to have even less stature and credibility, which is partly the culture of “work” being valued over all else. But it is also sexism rearing its ugly head.I know I am very angry and I know that I need to get beyond it to forgiveness somehow. I too resonate when people of colour talk about their experiences with racism, because they echo my own as a woman in the church.  All this to say – amen! Preach it! You are saying something really important and hopefully, PhD or not, others will listen!

I would encourage you to read it: Gender, church, and the art of alternate endings.

I also read and resonated loudly with this article by David Park another great advocate for justice, in the EFCA church.  He talks of  Six Postures of Ethnic Minority Culture towards Majority Culture.  And oddly enough, or not, I found that this has been similar to my response as a woman in the church.   But if you want to read it in its entirety it’s here.   These postures are:

Posture 1: Unaware.
Posture 2: Angry and Wounded.
Posture 3: Silent and Resigned.
Posture 4: Duty and Pleasing.
Posture 5: Unity as Assimilation.
Posture 6:  Equal and Empowered Partnership.

I have lived, am living these.  Park says: In the effort “to build bridges between minority and majority cultures, that there is the feeling that this whole race dialogue is “unfair” to the majority, but it’s really not. It’s hard on both sides to work towards having a relationship, especially a relationship that is part of our witness of a common savior. It takes work, and it is fair. So jump in and assume the right posture. We are in it for the long haul.”

Yes we are in it for the long haul as we work together to build up the Church, to see it as Jesus would and become the beautiful reconciled body of Christ with everyone serving our of their gifts and talents.

I hear God’s call to be a voice for certain voiceless populations, especially for women in the evangelical church.  I am constantly clarifying, are you sure Lord?  And at times I have been unproductive, and not very Godly, allowing myself to be anxious or angry, or even trying to please others rather than listen well.

Each of us must ask ourselves, male and female alike, are we living as an old person or a new creation?  In the flesh or in the Spirit?    And what are we being called to as we serve?

I’d love to know what you think on this or anything.  And in the meantime, as I actively wait to know what I am to do with my writing on women in the church, pray for me will you?

Melody

I Like My Church, They Don’t Tell Me What to Think

By
December 9, 2010
My Story
2 Comments

The world is all gates,

all opportunities,

strings of tension

waiting to be struck.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like my church.  They don’t tell me what to think or what to do.  Let me explain.  They do not tell me how to vote.

It just feels wrong for a person of spiritual authority to tell others how they should vote. The “correct” vote isn’t partisan — it can’t be. As people of a community I believe we must vote with our minds and hearts, considering both what is good for ourselves, as well as what is good for others.

I was just a few days ago writing about thinking of others more highly than yourself.  I think this applies …

  • when it comes to how you vote.

  • when it comes to politics.

  • when it comes to what we say in public discourse.  

I also think that we should figure out how to be civil, even as we disagree sometimes vehemently with one another. Let’s not make decisions about each other based on certain issues and where another person might stand.

Our nation has become so divided and it seems to me that politicians don’t even know how to do their jobs any more.

Using the system to hold all votes, no matter what the issue, so that you can keep tax cuts for the wealthiest small percentage of the nation is WRONG as well as holding up legislation that with help the unemployed.

Give the wealthiest Americans a tax cut and history suggests they will save the money rather than spend it. … President Barack Obama wants to extend the cuts for individuals earning less than $200,000 and couples earning less than $250,000 while ending them for those who earn more.  More here.

Who do they work for?  The wealthiest in our nation or the people?

Even as Congress debates whether to extend emergency unemployment checks for more than six million Americans who are approaching the 99-week limit, some four million others are facing the certain end of their benefits over the next year, unless an entirely new program is crafted.  More…

I agree with Jim Wallis, that President could have, even should have, fought harder this week.  Backed into a corner is no place to negotiate so I feel for him as well.

The richest 2 percent of the country just got an extension of tax cuts they didn’t need at great cost to us all. President Barack Obama should have been fighting against the self-interest of the very wealthiest Americans long before this. So he is now backed into a corner, and just made a compromise that he thinks is the best deal possible when up against the clock. He got some good things for working families in the payroll tax cut, the extension of unemployment benefits, various refundable tax credits, and the important middle class tax cut. But the president is now presiding over the great redistribution of wealth that has been going on for a very long time — the redistribution of wealth from the middle and the bottom to the top of American society — and leaving us with the most economic inequality in American history. (Emphasis mine) This will only grow larger with the Obama “compromise.”

Bread for myself

is a material question.

Bread for my neighbor

is a spiritual one.

– Nicholas Berdyaev

I believe every choice we make is a statement of who we are and what we prioritize. For people of faith, our priorities must always lie with the poor and most vulnerable. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the most fortunate while ending unemployment benefits and cutting back services for the poor does not reflect well on the values of faithful Americans.

For that reason, I have signed the following letter (led spiritual leaders in our nation.  There is also one led my Millionaires.) urging Washington to let tax cuts for the most fortunate expire as scheduled at the end of the year. I’ve put an excerpt below.

To me the bottom line is be a person who thinks for themselves.  Search scripture to determine how Jesus would have responded here. We are each moral people who must be guided by our conscience.

I’ll conclude with this from a Seattle Pastor & Thinker, Eugene Cho:

But going back to the question and conversation of civility, I wholehearted agree that we – as a larger society (and as a Christian  community) need to learn how to be civil:

  • We need to learn how to listen.
  • We need to speak without shouting and screaming.
  • We need to not to accuse and attack.
  • We need to stop demonizing one another or prominent leaders.
  • We need to be better informed.
  • We need to agree to give space to disagree. It’s ok.
  • We need to learn where we agree and see how we can work together.

But as Christians, we need to agree that the most significant aspects of our relationship are not our politics, our political views, or our political affiliations but that we are connected together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Who are we?  Who is our community?  Who are you?  Who is your community?  How does how you vote reflect that?

Philippians 2.1-11 says:

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had: Who, being the very nature of God, did not consider equality of God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death–even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

MH

Almost 50 million Americans wonder where their next meal is coming from. One in 5 children live in poverty and many Americans are out of work. At the same time, there are more millionaires in our country today than at the peak of the market in 2007. In the last 30 years, the wealthiest 1% have seen their incomes increase almost 300% while regular Americans are worse off.

We have a responsibility to balance our budgets. We have an equal responsibility to make sure that burden is carried by those who can most afford it. Giving benefits to the rich while denying them to the poor is a sin. As citizens of this country and people of faith, we have an obligation to those in need. The book of Proverbs puts it quite simply: “He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich–both come to poverty” (Prov 22:16 NIV).

We believe that our own good is tied up into the common good; that we will meet the challenges of today not just as individuals but together as a nation. We are grateful for the leadership of the PATRIOTIC MILLIONAIRES who have stepped forward to ask that their tax cuts expire. We hope you will heed their counsel.

May God bless the leadership of you and the Congress, and may God bless America to be a blessing to the world.

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I Will Not Be Silent

By
October 1, 2010
My Story
4 Comments
A Suicide Note

Image by έŁέ¢τяøиί¢ έγέ via Flickr

Five suicide deaths by students bullied because of being GLBT or Q is a tragedy — each life lost was important and significant.

Each life matters to their mother and father, family and friends.  Each person had hopes and dreams of a life of love and acceptance.  Each child deserves to feel safe at any school.

I know teachers and staff that work hard to help in Madison schools, as I saw recently with a transgender child in elementary school.

But more needs to be done.  Each and every student deserves to attend safe and welcoming schools, even in rural or more conservative towns.   They deserve to have us speak up when homophobia or bigotry occurs — whether it is seemingly innocent or blatantly malicious.

No matter your religious viewpoint about sexual orientation or gender identity – each of us in this nation should come together to agree on this fact:  Kids committing suicide is tragic and should not happen.

Eugene Cho, a pastor that I know via his blog, wrote this today:

When the issue of GLBTQ come up, it’s easier to keep the conversation about theological and biblical interpretations and well, the issue of the subject in hand but in the meanwhile, we forget there’s people behind the issues.

There’s always people behind the issues.  But regardless of interpretations and views, we should all agree: This needs to stop.  But when we are silent, we are complicit.

I implore each person reading this to speak up about this horrendous tragedy. Express how wrong it is that kids are resorting to suicide.

There is no wrong way to humbly listen and learn from a GLBTQ  friend.  Listen to them and hear their story. See them.  They could be, may be, your brother, sister, child, parent, aunt, uncle or friend who is sitting silent and afraid.  Make it safe for people to be with you.  And remember these young men:

  • Raymond Chase was 19, an openly gay sophomore studying culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. He killed himself Wednesday after a fellow student in his dorm wrote, “You are gay, get out of Barlow [Hall] before you regret it” on his dry erase board.
  • 18-year-old Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi threw himself off of the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, after his roommate had broadcast secret video footage of his sexual encounter with another man over the Internet.
  • On Sept. 23, Asher Brown, 13, shot himself in the head at his parent’s home in Cypress, Texas.
  • On Sept. 19 in Tehachapi, Calif., 13-year-old Seth Walsh hanged himself from a tree and died Tuesday after nine days of life support.
  • 15-year-old Billy Lucas of Greensburg, Ind., also took his own life earlier in the month.

My heart is heavy tonight.

Melody

GLBTQ issues In the News: http://www.glaad.org/bestandworst

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Jesus is weeping.

By
September 8, 2010
Faith & (Dis)Belief
Leave a Comment

I am dismayed — mortified — and full of questions this morning as I continue to read the news.   My human response is to consider the gun carrying, Quran burning, pastor Terry Jones, to be idiotic and stupid, the definition of ignorance.  Although my gut response isn’t helpful or kind (or very Godly) can I say I just don’t understand him — at — all! ? It seems to me to be  unfair that such a crazy man “represents” the same powerful, life-changing, transforming, beautiful faith that I have experienced with Jesus.  And because Terry Jones speaks so loudly (and is getting so much media coverage) I must say:  He does not speak for me.

I have to speak up and say:  This is not my faith.  This is not my Christianity.  Not my religion.  It is nothing like what I know to be true about Jesus and how Jesus would respond to the climate between people of various faiths in America today. I cannot conceive of the level of confusion and misguided thinking that would lead a follower of Christ to make these expressions of their (supposed) faith.

The freedom to express one’s self is a cherished liberty in America — I value the freedom I have to write my thoughts down here on this blog and express my beliefs and thoughts.  But burning a book (sacred or otherwise), a flag, a cross, a church, a temple — it is all so indulgent and wrong.

A post by Eugene Cho this morning helps to direct thoughtful people toward a peaceful response asking the sometimes silly question: WWJD.

What Jesus would do ?

“How do their/your/my (my addition in italics) actions and stories testify to God’s work and invitation of reconciliation and redemption?  As Christians, we can find harmony in the beauty of the Gospel:  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]  And because Christ has died for us, we can live for the work of reconciliation and redemption. I am not suggesting we be timid in our declaration of Christ as the way, the truth and the life.  But in doing so, we can also choose to lay down the sword and choose love and build peace.  We can choose to believe the truth of the Gospel: God not only died for us but dwelt amongst us. He walked among us. And he did the most amazing thing: Jesus ate with humanity.”

Jesus came to “restore, redeem and reconcile” us.  He wants to heal us of our depravity.  He died so that we could be changed people.  He brought the Peace of himself to our world — of confusion, hatred and ignorance.  This is the whole reason for what Jesus did – giving his life for our life.  By coming to earth and walking and eating with us, he showed us only love.  Love others as you love me, he said.

Cho says it well: “God wants eternal communion and friendship with us. He creates it, pursues it, and ultimately sends his Son to restore, redeem and reconcile that Relationship – as the perfect Sacrifice.  Truly amazing.”

How does Jesus respond to the state of faith in America.  I believe …  Jesus weeps for us.  And why do I share this today?  Because what God has done for me is to heal me, making my life about reconciliation not judgment.  And I do not want the reputation of Christ to be slaughtered by men like Terry Jones.  No, God does not need me to salvage his reputation, but still I feel compelled to speak for what I have experienced as a person of faith.

If you want to talk to me about this or anything else I have written, please give me a call.  Or email me at: melhhanson@yahoo.com.  Otherwise please feel free to leave a thought here.

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