The CBE Scroll

Lately there has been here quite a bit of reporting of statements from other blog sites, referring to roles and responsibilities for wives and husbands, women and men. The verses being quoted to support such claims have seemed, at best, verses fraught with interpretation or translation issues, and not as clear as some would have us believe.

Meanwhile, there are countless places within Scripture where our responsibilities towards one another within the body of Christ are encouraged, and there can be no argument against those plain statements. For example, in Galatians 5:13-14 we have the words ‘For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love, become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment,”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”‘ (NRSV)

Jesus himself said ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the law and the prophets’ (Matthew 7:12, NRSV) – in such a simple yet profound statement about our innate equality and responsibility towards others. Also in Scripture, there is a long list of ‘one anothers’ which cover all aspects of relationships within the Christian family, and we would do well to live by them and then discover that there is no need for anyone to be responsible for, or over, any other person. If we all esteem others better than ourselves, we can’t go wrong.

It is interesting that Jesus is not recorded as having said anything which even remotely suggested differing roles for women or men. All people are called to sacrifice, servanthood, submission, and holiness… the list goes on and on. Jesus’ last words were ‘Go therefore and make disciples of nations… and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ (Matthew 28:19-20 NRSV) You will notice that there is not a word about the difference between male and female followers or their responsibilities.

Hello CBE Scrollers! I’ve been enjoying your discussions, and I’d like to get your insight on the theme for the next issue of CBE’s Mutuality magazine, themed ‘role models.’

I have listed some of the questions the issue will explore below. If you have a response to one of the questions, please include the number of the question in your comment. We may consider ways to weave blog comments into our ‘role models’ issue, so don’t write anything you wouldn’t want to appear in print.

Think of this as a virtual interview, or a roundtable discussion.

1. How can egalitarian role models help people transition from gender-based roles to biblical equality?

2. Give an example of how a role model has made a difference in your understanding of biblical equality.

3. What do you look for in a role model? How can you discern if someone is a bad role model?

4. How can you be a role model for someone else?

Thank you, and we look forward to your responses!

When I got married a year ago, I kept my maiden name - just the way it had always been. It wasn’t that I ever came upon a final decision; rather, it was more the result of a lot of indecision.

It was assumed, of course, by all of our family and friends that I would take my husband’s name. For not long after we had walked down the aisle we started receiving letters and invitations addressed to ‘Mr. and Mrs.,’ and it was frequently in the traditional form of, ‘Mr. and Mrs. John Smith.’ When I received those letters, I wondered where I went in the midst of the addressing process. Suddenly, my identity was completely lost in my husband, and it made me very ‘angsty.’

The angst, however, was no slight on my husband. I am ineffably in love with him and still breathless thinking about the incredible romance God has unraveled before us. However, I had spent almost thirty years with a certain name. How could I suddenly change it to something else? Losing my name felt like losing my identity. It felt like losing a certain part of me - my culture, my heritage, and the woman I had grown into - complete and whole, called and gifted by God without a husband/man’s ‘leadership’ or ‘covering.’ And, putting my first name with my husband’s last name resulted in a person I did not know. She was a stranger to me, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to be her.

I wrestled with the name change for months before and after my wedding and was told, more than once, of all the spiritual reasons for why I needed to change my name. Some reasons given to me included:

1. You need to embrace your husband’s identity as your own identity. (My response: Of course! But my question is: why doesn’t he need to embrace my identity as his own identity, too?)

2. It is a standing truth that God made Adam and Eve in his image, but at the same time he refers to both as ‘man.’ (I think that the person who said this meant that since God referred to both Adam and Eve by the man’s name ‘man,’ so too, I should take on my husband’s name.)

3. You need to change your name because ‘the beauty of God’s image is in a man and woman becoming one. Each needs to be lost in the identity of the other, being fully represented and affirmed. The Father was willing to identify with the Son and the Son totally submitted to the will of the Father.’ (My response: But why is it, despite this ‘equality’ sounding reasoning, do I feel like I’m the only one losing her identity here? I don’t feel like I am being fully represented and affirmed.)

4. Changing your name to your husband’s demonstrates your submission to him as your spiritual head. (My response: What about the idea of mutual submission from Ephesians 5:21?)

5. You need to show your oneness and unity in order to do battle against Satan. Satan attacks marital unity, after all. (My response: Is a name capable of scaring off Satan?)

I was perturbed by these reasons given to me by older, spiritual men whom I respected. Their arguments made it sound like changing my name was God’s will and akin to being spiritual and godly. Not changing it was not being a submissive wife and therefore being a bad Christian. However, I don’t personally believe a woman changing her name is a biblical mandate. It’s a part of Western culture and tradition, one that has been deeply influenced by patriarchy, but it is not the equivalent to godliness.

In a way, my desire to keep my maiden name is a resistance against some of the inconsistent lines of thoughts that were presented to me. I don’t want to simply fall in line with patriarchal traditions that pose as biblical mandate. To change my name would feel to me like I was making a public proclamation that I subscribe to mainstream interpretations of spirituality - i.e. headship and submission roles in marriage - when on the contrary, my husband and I have spent the last year establishing a biblical marriage based on mutual submission.

So, I haven’t changed my name. But, I still wrestle with all this because while I want to be able to represent the uniqueness and individuality which God gave to us both, I also want to represent the oneness. I don’t want to be so focused on the ‘twoness’ in the midst of the oneness that there is no oneness to be seen. And, ‘oneness’ is important to me too.

I still haven’t come to a final conclusion yet. Maybe you could help me.

What do you think about the name-changing tradition? Biblical, unbiblical? What are pros and cons to a woman changing her name? What is your personal experience?

Founded by the forward thinking Mary Lyon (1797-1849), Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts (today known as Mount Holyoke College) was not her first educational venture. Lyon taught for several years along the Massachusetts countryside in smaller, elementary schools (often paid far less than the men in the area for the same amount of work). From 1817 to 1821, she attended Sanderson Academy and later taught there, as well as at the Adams Female Seminary in New Hampshire and Ipswich Female Seminary. Mount Holyoke opened in South Hadley in 1837 with eighty students, and it is Fidelia Fiske (1816-1864) who became its first graduate to enter into international missions.

Fiske was said to be a precocious young girl, reading Cotton Mather’s Magnali Christi Americana and Timothy Dwight’s Theology by age eight. She came to Mount Holyoke in 1839, but her education was interrupted when she contracted typhoid fever. Forty students contracted typhoid fever at the same time and nine died. It was thought that she, as one not known for good health, would be on that list. Her father, sister, and mother helped her pull through, though her father and sister also picked up typhoid fever and died in the process. Her mother, Hannah, did not want her to drift too far away after her near-death experience, so for a short while Fidelia taught at the local schools. Once she had recovered, her mentor and good friend, Mary Lyon, encouraged her to return to school and finish her education. After completing her degree, she was overwhelmingly approved by the trustees to be a full time instructor at Mount Holyoke.

As is often the case, life changes quickly. A missionary on furlough named Justin Perkins wrote a book called Eight Year’s Residence in Persia. Fidelia read it with eagerness. The book described the world of Persia (modern day Iran) and the needs of the people in such detail (including full color artwork) that she wondered if she would be better serving Christ in that world.

Within little time, word came that Perkins was nearing the end of his stay in America and had not located someone to replace Judith Grant, a missionary in Persia who had started a day school for girls, but passed away a few years earlier. Mary Lyon called all the instructors and students of Mount Holyoke together for an emergency meeting, informing them of the need. Those interested were told to drop a note in a box. While Fidelia and others were certainly academically qualified, it was later recalled by Perkins that Fidelia’s note was the only one that said, ‘If I am found worthy, I would like to go.’ The others regaled the missionary with their curriculum vitas, but because Fiske saw it as a spiritual engagement, she became their first and natural choice.

With little time to work, she immediately sent out a letter to her mother asking for her blessing. She also sent out letters to other family members, asking for their opinions. All of them told her that she was not healthy enough to enter into a mission field. Some pointed out that she could be leaving her family for good if she did such a thing. With good intentions, they reminded her that she was not the type of person to go off on adventures (clearly ignoring the fact that her interest seemed to indicate otherwise). There was also the added point, being a single missionary woman in the field was nearly scandalous - a sentiment still living on in some circles today.

Heeding their concerns, Fidelia turned down the offer and tried to move on. The position was offered to another woman, whose family told her the same thing. It was then that Mary Lyon came back to Fidelia and asked her to reconsider. Fidelia asked to sleep on it - something she was not able to do easily. Very early in the morning she knocked on Lyon’s door. She was willing to go to Persia, but on one condition: Lyon had to help her convince her mother. On that snowy winter day, she took a sled ride with Lyon to her mother’s home and spent the weekend discussing the issue. By Sunday evening, her mother gave her blessing.

It was a decision that changed her life. She boarded a ship with Perkins and his family and journeyed off to Oroomiah, arriving in June of 1843. There she made the school of Grant into an effective boarding school modeled after Mount Holyoke. She entered into a hostile culture that found no value in women and saw no reason to educate their daughters. Given such a world, one of the first phrases she learned in their language was ‘give me your daughters.’

Fidelia spent fifteen years in Persia declaring the value of women. She convinced families to let her educate their young daughters instead of abandoning them or selling them into slavery. She became a mother and a teacher to these girls.

By 1858, her struggle with sickness got the better of her and she returned to America. During that time she toured New England, raising awareness of the work still needed to be done in international missions. She returned to teaching at Mount Holyoke for a while and later published several books, including a biography on Mary Lyon. She died in 1864.

Under the guidance of Mary Lyon, Fidelia was encouraged to get a quality education and had her individual gifts nurtured. She did not allow herself (or the girls she ministered to in Iran) to be pigeonholed based solely on their gender. Each of us could serve as a Mary Lyon to someone who needs nurturing. Organizations like CBE and its members call Christians to minister by giftedness, not by gender.

How do you do the same in your local congregation?

For more information on Fidelia Fiske, see Faith Working by Love here.

How should the first part of Malachi 2:16 be understood?

In the NIV, the first part of the verse reads: ‘”I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself [a] with violence as well as with his garment,” says the LORD Almighty.’ (2:16, emphasis added) The footnote to this verse in the NIV says ‘[a] or his wife.’

In the TNIV, the first part of the verse reads: ‘”I hate divorce,” says the LORD God of Israel, “and I hate it when people clothe themselves with injustice,” says the LORD Almighty.’ There is no footnote reading ‘or his wife.’

If you look at the ESV, it’s translated this way: ‘”For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “covers his garment with violence,” says the LORD of Hosts.’

Somewhere in the past, I heard that ‘garment’ was a Hebrew slang term of the time for ‘wife.’

In the NIV, it appears that the word ‘himself’ could be translated ‘his wife.’ In this version it could be argued that God hates it when a man beats his wife. The TNIV doesn’t allow for this translation at all. It doesn’t even mention men or violence.
The ESV mentions that the man who does not love his wife but divorces her covers his garment with violence. In this case ‘garment’ appears to refer to the man himself. Or, does it really refer to the slang term ‘wife?’ If so, is divorce being compared to a man doing violence to either himself or his wife?

With so many Bible translations to pick from, sometimes it’s hard to know which version most accurately represents the thought being expressed in the original language.

My question is: does this verse indicate that God hates it when a man is violent towards his wife, or that God is comparing divorce to violence, or does it mean something else? And, if it does mean something else, what is it?