The CBE Scroll

My husband lovingly calls me a “glass half empty” person. “Sometimes it’s even three-quarters empty,” he told me the other day. (It must have been a particularly rough day—sorry, honey!)

It’s true. I crave order and balance, and a world corrupted by sin doesn’t offer much of either. My reactions to gender issues are often of the strong negative quality. I get angry, frustrated, depressed by the way people, including Christians, willingly oppress one another.

The fact is, I’ve seen some things that would disturb the most devoted optimist. I was going to list some of them here, but based on your comments on Brandon’s recent post, you don’t need me to convince you that the church can be a downer!

When I’m staring at the bottom of the glass, my husband reminds me that the tap is nearby, ready to provide a refill. There are good things happening out there, too, that should encourage me.

For example, my conservative congregation has just opened up ushering and public Bible reading to women. Granted, they have a long way to go, but this is a major move for a church in our denomination.

This fall, a complementarian theologian declared at a public meeting that egalitarians are winning the gender debate. Of course, his purpose in making that point was to spur his like-minded colleagues to more aggressive strategies, but still, it’s good to know that the message of biblical equality is being heard loud and clear.

And (ok, this starts off as a negative, but keep reading) last year a friend was distraught because her seminary advisor had just told her there wasn’t much point in her going on to a Ph.D.—despite her clear academic gifts—because a seminary doctorate was only useful for teaching theology, and of course, it would be a sin for her to teach men preparing for the ministry. Get to the good part, you say? That woman is now completing a doctorate in Church and State at a major university and presented a paper at this year’s Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting.

So, yeah, my glass-half-empty orientation is not completely without cause. But we must encourage each other in the victories, because with God’s gifting and leading, we are making a difference. By our teaching of Scripture and our application of it to our relationships with one another, we are declaring a message for which the whole world thirsts: the hope of the gospel of Christ fills the emptiest of souls to overflowing.

Brad Kirkegard, a Ph. D. candidate in religious studies, has a very enlightening review of The Da Vinci Code in the Journal of Luthern Ethics. Readers can check out the whole thing if they’re interested–and it is probably one of most balanced and informative short pieces on Da Vinci that I have run across. I bring it up here because of Kirkegard’s comments about the novel’s treatment of “sacred feminine.” For those three or four people who haven’t heard, one of the key themes of Dan Brown’s novel is that early Christianity held a very high view of femininity, but the institutionalized church ultimately squashed this “sacred feminine” and replaced it with a thoroughgoing patriarchalism.

In that light, Kirkegard notes that Dan Brown actually does a very poor job of elevating the standing of women. He writes,

What I find to be the greatest irony of all in this novel is its repeated statements of trying to reclaim the sacred feminine in Christianity. This would indeed be a noble, if challenging goal, and one that has engaged many theologians and historians. What is ironic though, is that the novel does not in fact elevate women, even as far as the problematic tradition of early Christianity. Consider for instance the character of Sophie Neveau. She is supposed to be a cryptographer and member of the French police force, as well as Jesus’ remarkable blood descendant. From this assessment one might rightly assume that she would be the great hero of the story. Instead she is presented as weak and powerless needing constant protection and education by the men around her.

More than that, Sophie’s ignorance of history, art, religion, etc. is repeatedly used as a plot device to give the male protagonists a chance to enlighten her about all of the contrived conspiracy theories that establish the novel’s premise. She is a police cryptographer, but she is “remarkably inept,” Kirkegard observes, “at solving any of the riddles they encounter.” No doubt she has had at least minimal police training in self defense, and yet she needs protection–from a Harvard symbology professor!–from those who seek her physical harm.

Brown also fails even to accord Mary Magdalene the same honor she received in the heretical Gospels to which he refers. In his extended treatment of the Gospel of Mary, he reads right past Mary’s depiction as someone with superior knowledge because of her closeness to Jesus (a docetic, otherworldly one, by the way, and not a mere human). No, what was most important about Mary Magdalene was … she was married to Jesus and bore his child! Kirkegard concludes,

This should be eerily familiar. Taking a specific textual tradition that celebrates Mary’s importance for her mind and perception, he has made her and women once more important only as objects and vessels to be saved by sexuality and particularly by child birth.

I’m a bit mystified by those who have latched onto The Da Vinci Code because they are feminist or egalitarian Christians looking for handles to restore a feminine voice within the church. Quite beyond the questions of orthodoxy and heresy, and even overlooking the historiographical howlers on virtually every page, if we want to give women a rightful place in the church and society, is this the best we can do?

Megan Greulich, editor of E-Quality online journal, features some challenging questions in the spring issue. Since the majority of families operate in an egalitarian manner, even if they profess a complementarian position, it seems pertinent to diaologue about how an egalitarian family really operates.

How does a couple committed to a lifestyle that reflects biblical equality balance careers and family?
What does egalitarian parenting look like for both girls and boys?
What are the benefits and challenges of holding to biblical equality in the family?

Apparently we been noticed by Ms. Magazine, even if only for marketing purposes. I received the following email.

The new issue of Ms. is on newsstands today (April 24), full of its usual galvanizing coverage of the feminist movement. We thought some of the stories might make for interesting posts on The Scroll or Christian Egalitarians, particularly Ani’s recent work to revitalize Buffalo, Geena Davis’ campaign to get female characters into G-rated movies, and our cover story–on the women garment workers who are the real victims of the Jack Abramoff scandal. In addition, gender and language expert Deborah Tannen explained to Ms. why her new New York Times bestseller, “You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation,” is a feminist book. [from] Jessica

Anyone read this mag regularly?

I found this quote a while back:

Deborah occupies a unique role in Israelite history. Not only is she a judge in the sense of a military leader, but also she is the only judge in the law-court sense of that title (Judg. 4.5) in the book of Judges. Of all the military leaders of the book, only Deborah is called a “prophet.” She is also the only judge to “sing” of the victory, illustrating the creative role played by women as shapers of tradition (cf. Exod. 15.20-21). While some would see Deborah, a female, as an anomaly in all these roles, her contributions should be set alongside those of other women who are pivotal figures in the premonarchic period (Miriam, Jael, Jephthah’s daughter, Samson’s mother). All emerge as strong women with no negative valuation, perhaps because during the period of the judges, a time of social and political crisis, able people of any status could contribute to group efforts. In the rural, agrarian setting of the period of the judges, with the family as the dominant social institution, the important role of women in family life was more readily transferred to matters of public concern than during the monarchy, with its more formal and hierarchical power structures. Deborah as a strong woman reflects her own gifts as well as a relatively open phase of Israelite society.
—Carol L. Meyers, “Deborah,” The Oxford Companion to the Bible, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 161.

It does seem to be the case that in smaller and less “sophisticated” communities, women have greater freedom in exercising their gifts–even if nobody thinks of what they’re doing as “leadership.” Certainly the growth of the early church, when Christians met around the dinner table rather than in a cathedral and “family” was a principle metaphor for what they were doing, it seems women’s gifts flourished. Sociologists tell us that in new religious sects there is often a greater degree of gender equality than a generation or so later in the movement’s history when things start getting institutionalized.

If that is the case, perhaps Deborah should be a sort of “patron saint” for the Christian egalitarian movement. She exercised her obvious skills in leadership, religious instruction, and jurisprudence (not to mention poetry!) in an era when those skills were needed and therefore welcome.