“The subjection of women in Muslim societies–especially in Arab nations and in Iran–is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.”

She goes on a couple of paragraphs down: “The condition of Muslim women may be the most pressing women’s issue of our age, but for many contemporary American feminists it is not a high priority. Why not? The reasons are rooted in the worldview of the women who shape the concerns and activities of contemporary American feminism. That worldview is–by tendency and sometimes emphatically–antagonistic toward the United States, agnostic about marriage and family, hostile to traditional religion, and wary of femininity. The contrast with Islamic feminism could hardly be greater.”

Sommers then follows with example after example of the skewed priorities of American (secular) feminism and takes them to task for their moral short sightedness. She sites Katha Pollitt, a columnist at the Nation, for example, who draws a “common thread of misogyny” between Christian Evangelicals and the Taliban, and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, who characterizes Christian evangelical movements (that’s us!) as “Christian Wahhabism,” i.e., the name of the sect that is the inspiration for Osama bin Laden. These radical feminist philosophies “collapse moral categories in ways that defy logic, common sense, and basic decency,” such as casually placing “limiting young people’s access to accurate information about sex and opposing abortion [in the U.S.] on the same plane as throwing acid in women’s faces and stoning them to death” [in third world countries]. Likewise they seem to be “incapable of distinguishing between private American groups that stigmatize gays and foreign governments that hang them.”

It may be that some of these feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism, she says, and find it difficult to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. Maybe they find it easier to find fault with American society for minor inequities than criticizing heinous practices elsewhere. To her credit, Sommers does mention some activity in the secular feminist movement, such as Eleanor Smeal and Mavis Leno’s efforts with the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) to create a national campaign in 1997 to expose the crimes of the Taliban.

Fortunately, Muslim women are creating their own growing movement to address their plight. “Islamic feminists,” says Sommers, “believe that women’s rights are compatible with Islam rightly understood. One of their central projects is progressive religious reform. Through careful translation and interpretation of the Koran and other sacred texts, scholars challenge interpretations that have been used to justify sexist customs. They point out that forced veiling, arranged marriages, and genital cutting are rooted in tribal paganism and are nowhere enjoined by the Koran. Where the Koran explicitly permits a practice such as the physical chastisement of wives by husbands, the feminist exegetes try to show that, like slavery, the practice is anachronistic and incompatible with the true spirit of the faith. This kind of interpretation of scripture has been practiced by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars for centuries. Now Islamic women want to play a part in it, and nothing in Islamic law, they believe, prohibits their doing so.”

I don’t know how much of this slanted piece I believe, but it does appear that Islamic feminism differs radically from its best known contemporary American secular counterpart — having instead a faith-based, family-centered and positive-towards-men approach. Too bad that the CBE version of gender equality isn’t better known, or Sommers might have seen some hope in America.

I appreciate CBE’s international scope and was happy to see the most recent issue of Priscilla Papers highlights gender justice worldwide. The moral need and imperative to engage Muslims can’t be emphasized enough. Does anyone else see an opportunity for Christian egalitarians to dialog with and help our Muslim sisters? Although the details may be different, we speak the same type of religious language and have similar approaches. Perhaps some CBE members have already involved themselves in such projects. If so, why aren’t they better known? Maybe if [more/bigger/more impressive] joint projects could be undertaken, perhaps both our respective patriarchal societies could be helped.

I recently re-read an article by Rebecca Groothuis where she categorizes people into 3 groups concerning biblical equality. She discourages conversation with people who are very vocally against what they term ‘worldly feminism’ and says it is most often a fruitless exercise to try to convince a person whose mind is made up.

Those who hold to hierarchy but accept that Christians who have other views are also concerned for being true to the scriptures are good candidates for some discussion but here again, it seldom convinces them to change their view. The most profitable group to speak with are those who have genuine questions and are willing to discuss different ways of translating certain passages and are open to learning what we have to communicate.

Of course, the difficulty is that we often do not discover to which category a person belongs until we have said something that crosses an imaginary line of biblical correctness, and then we have the choice to keep going and maybe end up arguing or back out gracefully while still retaining the friendship.

I would be interested in other readers’ encouraging experiences of sharing their beliefs with other Christians as I guess we all have had far too many discouraging times!

Ezer is used 20 times in the Old Testament: seventeen times to describe God and three times to describe a military ally or aide. “Help” or “helper” is an adequate translation, but English has different nuances than the Hebrew does. In English “helper” implies someone who is learning, or under a person in authority. In the Hebrew “help” comes from one who has the power to give help—it refers to someone in a superior position. That is why God can help Israel: he has the power to do so. God helps Israel because they do not have the power to help themselves.

There is another possible definition for ezer: “power” or “strength.” Both words are from the same Hebrew root and the nouns would be identical. This is seen in how ezer is translated as either “helper” or “power/strength” in the Judean king’s name, Uzziah, which means “God is my strength,” as well as the other name he is known as, Azariah. There are also poetic passages where “power” or “strength” are the only logical translations of ezer. It is clear that in some passages the root for ezer is “helper,” and in others it is the root for “power.”

Cenegdo is two prepositions, and together their literal meaning is “facing.” Ke is the first preposition and it means “like” or “corresponding to.” Negdo means to stand in someone’s presence. Paired with ke it means to be in the presence of an equal. Together these two prepositions show the relationship between two people: it means they are standing or sitting facing each other, which shows they are equals. Ezer cenegdo does not mean or even imply to mean one who is subordinate or inferior—in creation or in function. Woman was created to be a power equal to man; an autonomous being that God created so that the man would have someone like him, and equal to him, to share his life with.

The man acknowledges this when he sees the woman. In the second poetic passage in the Bible he proclaimed: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”! He knew at last an ezer cenegdo had been brought to him. His speech reinforces the woman as his equal. Unlike the animals, she corresponds to him—she is like him; there is mutuality, unity and solidarity. The man recognized what God had done by calling her woman and saying she came from man. The narrator then stated, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). This seems odd in that in all Near Eastern cultures it was the woman who left her family to live with her husband and his family. Again, we see that one is not above the other. Flying in the face of patriarchal culture, the mandate for marriage is one where the man leaves his family and clings to his wife.

Woman is not subordinate to man because she was made from man. This would imply that man would be subordinate to the dirt he was formed from. As Phyllis Trible points out both man and woman are made from raw material that God fashions into something else. When God is done there is no longer dirt—there is man; there is no longer a side—there is woman. In both cases it is God’s creative activity that creates and sustains both man and woman. Woman is not dependent on man, but on God, for her creation and her being, just as man is.

In Genesis 2:23 when the man recognizes the woman as someone comparable to him and calls her “woman,” some believe that he names her as he named the animals earlier. They interpret this to mean that as man has dominion over the animals, now in a similar way he has dominion over the woman, and this is God-ordained. But the normal naming formula that can denote authority over another is not used here. Normally call is immediately followed by the naming of a name, and here the text does not say that the man named the woman, only that he recognized her as one like him and called her “woman.” The first time the female is called “woman” is by the narrator in verse 22: “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman.” She is recognized as “woman” before the man sees her. He is simply affirming what God has done: given him an ezer cenegdo.

In the beginning, men and women were both created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), and they were created to be equals. They were both given the commands to be fruitful and to rule over the earth (Gen. 1:28-30). The woman was not created to be a subordinate helper to her husband. She was created as an autonomous being; she was a complete human being, just as the man was. Her existence was not dependent on him as his existence was not dependent on her: their existence depended on God alone who created them both.

Another assumption is that since woman was made because it was “not good that the man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18), and the first marriage covenant comes after man’s declaration of woman being “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), that a woman’s primary purpose is marriage and that should be her primary goal in life as well. Even though woman was created to alleviate the man’s loneliness and provide him an ezer cenegdo, men are not raised to believe that marriage should be their primary purpose and goal in life. For men their main purpose is a career. How are single women with a call to ministry to react to the attitude that they are just “playing ministry” until Mr. Right comes along? After all, isn’t Genesis 2 clear that marriage is the God-ordained, and therefore, the “natural” state to be in?

Certainly marriage is a part of God’s design, and marriage is to be the ultimate expression of love, fidelity, and sexuality, but it is just one of many relationships. As Christians, we must remember that marriage is not the supreme relationship—the supreme relationship of any believer’s life is with God; our relationship with God is what makes us whole and complete.

Although I began this with Genesis, I would like to end with what the New Testament has to say about women and ministry. As Christians we believe that Jesus Christ came to redeem all people—both men and women, and now “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). At Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled all the believers who had been gathered—both men and women, and they went out to the streets proclaiming all the things that had happened in the last few weeks. It is reasonable to believe that the women who were at the foot of the Cross were in the upper room as well. When the Holy Spirit came, he came to all: men, women, married, single, old, and young alike, which Peter affirms in his sermon. All that God required of these believers was obedience: they stayed in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came, and then they all went out and proclaimed what he had done. Whether one is married or single, male or female, is irrelevant in the Kingdom of God. All that is required is obedience to the call and the will of God.

Sources:

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002), “Helpmate or Power Equal to Him?” 11-22.

Joseph Coleson, ’Ezer Cenegdo: A Power Like Him, Facing Him as Equal (Grantham, PA: Wesleyan/Holiness Women Clergy), 1996.

Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton, Why Not Women? A Fresh Look at Scripture on Women in Missions, Ministry, and Leadership (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing), 2000.

J Lee. Grady, Ten Lies the Church Tells Women, How the Bible Has Been Misused to Keep Women in Spiritual Bondage (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House), 2000.

Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Nancy A. Hardesty, All We’re Meant to Be: Biblical Feminism for Today, 3rd rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), 1992.

Aída Besançon Spencer, Beyond the Curse: Women Called to Ministry (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers), 1985.

Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 1978.

All biblical translations are from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

P. S.: Since the writing of the thesis, I have married a wonderful egalitarian man who fully supports me in my callings as pastor and writer. He’s also fine with the fact that I cannot have children. :)

I think what I most appreciated about her initial post is the way she boiled down her thinking into an “elevator statement.” When someone asks her why she is a feminist, she has ready a brief, articulate response. It’s a good exercise: if you had 30 seconds and/or 100 words, how would you respond to the question?

Despite my caveats, there were still a few students who didn’t yet catch on. “But what was the reason they separated from the Reformed?” asked a student. “Was it baptism? Was it political or was it religious in nature?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, it was all of those things.” He scratched his head for a second and then I explained. People are people, no matter what generation they live in. Life is always complicated.

For example, I may think I’m ordering a Big Mac tonight because I’m hungry for a Big Mac, but any number of factors can go into that decision. I may order a Big Mac because I saw a commercial for McDonalds and in that commercial may have been the line: “You deserve a break today.” As I thought about that line, I thought, “Yeah, I do. At work they keep changing my job around or I have to deal with that clueless boss, or I save and save and never treat myself. I may have nothing in my refrigerator and I may not have enough time to run to the grocery store for the week. I may be hearing the commercial on the radio in my car and suddenly see a McDonalds. Any number of reasons can go into my decision and I may never boil it down to one single notion that moved me to buy a Big Mac.

As complicated as understanding the past is, the present is no easier. Why do people believe certain things? If I were to talk to the most ardent of the hierarchalists, I might hear that I’m an evangelical egalitarian simply because I’m rebellious or I might be accused of rejecting the authority of Scripture or I might have been “feminized” (whatever that actually means). As a matter of fact, I’ve heard these very accusations time and time again. In some cases, it is believed that evangelical egalitarianism is simply a disguise for the conspiracy of liberalism among evangelicals.

I don’t like those broad labels and accusations which have no basis in reality, at least, for me. Perhaps I’m an egalitarian because I’ve seen it in God’s Word after years of struggling with the idea and after years of seeing abuses in the church and in our seminaries. At any rate, if the hierarchalist is willing to get to know me a little better as a person before making up one’s mind about me, I am willing to get to know him or her as well.

I’ve met all types of hierarchalists. I’ve seen some so strongly patriarchal, that the more I learned about them, the more I discovered just how deeply rooted their misogyny went. I’ve seen the woman haters who abuse their wives. I’ve also seen the mild complementarian, the one who loves his family and believes that women should have the freedom in the church to do whatever a non-ordained male can do. The only apparent reason that it appears that this person holds off on accepting the ordination of women is simply out of the belief that the Bible commands it, and not out of any overt notion of male superiority. As a matter of fact, one such man I know pushed his church hard on this issue in order to bring justice to the women in the congregation, nearly causing a split in the process.

There are diversities of opinions out there and not all of them are equal. Some hold to the same position, to different degrees, for very different reasons. It is true that we can sometimes only deal with the arguments in general; for example, what is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11. But I have to remember constantly that while some complementarians might hold to a very rigid interpretation of the text, including the imposition of head coverings, others do not. Many see head coverings as a cultural marker of the text, and perhaps I can approach the discussion with them knowing that I may have less to overcome.

This is not to say that I won’t find frustration or that I won’t find the stereotype. Rather, it means that I should offer as much patience with the other person as I would want myself. After all, the Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12 is at heart the message of egalitarianism. Treating all others respectfully and equally is what every human being made in the image of God should expect. When going face to face in the gender wars, loving the other person is never something with which we are allowed to part.

My final acceptance of egalitarianism came after a full-fledged exposure to CBE through their conference in St. Davids , PA. There I met egalitarians who did not fit the stereotype. I found no men haters shouting from the rooftops. Instead, I found men and women who love God and who care about justice and human equity. I found men and women working together for the gospel. There I learned that I may better understand the reasons why people make their choices, if only I’m willing to love them and meet them face to face.

One important point she makes is that well-known evangelical leaders have effectively linked evangelical feminism with androgyny. I have personally seen this many times from complementarian writing—statements like “evangelical feminists and their efforts to blur the genders that God made so beautifully distinct.” Complementarians have had definite success in convincing many people both that androgyny will be the awful result if we embrace gift-based leadership and that secularization of the church is the purpose behind egalitarianism.

In light of this, I can’t help but believe there is a huge issue of fear in the evangelical church. It seems to me that much of what we do in the church is more of an effort to preserve our way of thinking (because our interpretation must be correct) rather than actually critically thinking and dealing with Scripture and culture (of both the past and the present). This is particularly fascinating to me since evangelicals distinguish themselves from fundamentalists in their insistence that culture should be engaged.

How do we combat fear in the evangelical church?

Evangelicals talk a lot about being “set apart” from the world. But that distinction often seems to be based in fear—a strict definition of what we are not rather than what we are. When discussing the evangelical identity as set apart from the broader culture, Sally Gallagher suggests that evangelicals could accept mutuality and still be distinguished from the “secular” world if:

“…they were demonstratively more egalitarian than the broader culture in sharing responsibility for, and not just helping each other with, paid and unpaid family labor.”

What if the church was about radical equality—where Christians practice mutual submission characterized by love, humility, and selflessness, where Christians’ gifts are used for the glory of God, and where gender is neither blurred or stereotyped, but celebrated? This sounds like the example of the early church. It also sounds like a way that evangelicals can set themselves apart from the rest of society—a way that evangelicals can still be evangelicals.

Following Driscoll’s biblical reading of prescribed gender roles, women quit their jobs and try to have as many babies as possible. And these are no mere women who fear independence, who are looking to live by the simple tenets of fundamentalist credo, enforced by a commanding husband: many of the women of Mars Hill reluctantly abandon successful lives lived on their own terms to serve their husbands and their Lord.

So if Deborah went to Mars Hill, she would have had to resign from being a prophet and judge, and who would have led Israelite troops to victory over Sisera? I guess Isreal would not have had that 40 years of peace under her rule. I guess Phoebe would not have been a deacon in the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1). The word that describes Phoebe as a “deacon” is the same word Paul uses when speaking of Timothy and Titus in their pastoral duties. At Mars Hill Phoebe would not have been allowed to pastor the church at Cenchreae, and she sure wouldn’t have been allowed to take Paul’s letter to Rome. Priscilla would not have been a tentmaker and copastor with her husband. Junia would not have been an apostle (Romans 16:7).

The online screening process that is used in Driscoll’s Acts 29 church planting application “begins with a lengthy doctrinal assertion that every word of the Bible is literal truth; the application plucks out the examples of creationism and male headship of home and church to clarify this doctrine.”

I have dealt with biblical literalism in Truth vs. Fact. In Does It Really Mean Helpmate? I looked at the creation account and showed that the Hebrew phrase ezer cenedgo means a help or power equal to, and that there is nothing submissive about the term. Woman was created equal with man to be partners with him in life, marriage, and ministry.

In other conversations I have pointed out that I am from rural Oklahoma. On the farm or ranch—everyone worked. There was no man’s work and woman’s work—husband, wife, children, and who ever else lived there worked to bring in the crop and cows. If they didn’t they starved. The division of the family between separate jobs and home is a fairly new phenomenon within human history. I also come from a poor, working class family—my mom worked; she had to. I have always looked at the stay-at-home mother as a middle class luxury. In many places around the world both men and women work hard to keep their families from starving. Not everyone has the luxury of one person staying home. In fact, few people do. That’s why I call this the post-WW2 mentality—society has to be at a certain economic level within an industrialized or technological society to afford the luxury of the stay at home mom.

The bottom line is it’s not biblical. God called women to be prophets, judges, and other leaders to obey him and lead his people. Women have the right to work: in Genesis 1:26 care and dominion of creation is given to both man and woman before the command to procreate in verse 28. Women are called to work in the world, work in ministry, and be ordained as pastors and ministers, because God has called us as the full witness of the Bible affirms.

Things like this used to make me mad. Now I grieve. I grieve over the bondage that this lie puts on both men and women, and it is not God’s will.

While egalitarians are often accused by patriarchalists of capitulating to culture and its demands, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a trap from which the patriarchal side cannot boast freedom. For example, after coming across a website that sold “modest clothing”—which as it turns out requires Victorian clothing patterns—I found that “virtuous” women wear bonnets or that godly women prefer floral prints. Of course, if one prefers ruffles and lace, then by all means, fill the dresser drawers. That is not a problem. The problem I found was an idolizing of a culture of the past, an infusion of the days-gone-by with images of virtue and the insinuation that only the clothing of a particular era or only those who looked a certain way were truly godly.

I was then reminded of a full-page ad I once saw for a conservative Christian boarding school in a leading conservative evangelical magazine. The image used stock photography of a smiling and pleasant looking blond-haired woman, sporting some smart black glasses and a black business suit. The tag line for the school was something like, “Do you want this woman to be your child’s advisor?” What seemed to be implied was that the kind of woman who wears a business suit and takes her career seriously is probably in some way evil, corrupted, or a feminist seeking to destroy your children’s morals.

There is a serious danger when one invests virtue in mere appearance. Whether it is long hair and dresses or power suits, virtue is not in the packaging. That is why I cringe when a perfume labeled “Virtuous Woman” is being sold at the Christian Retail Show. How can virtue be captured in a scent?

I’m reminded of Flannery O’ Connor’s classic short story, Good Country People, in which Manley Pointer, a used Bible salesman from “Willohobie, not even from a place, just near a place,” came knocking on Joy-Hulga Hopewell’s door selling Bibles. Joy-Hulga lost her leg in a hunting accident and spent her life mourning her displacement from society by burying herself in her schooling and earning her Ph.D. A Bible salesman didn’t really impress her, she long lost her belief in God and boasted a new “born-again” freedom in nihilism.

As a “good country” person, Pointer won the trust of Joy-Hulga’s mother, and found himself a guest at their dinner table for the evening. He also managed to win a taste of Joy-Hulga’s lips and maneuver her into a date in a hayloft. After his incessant begging, she gave in to Pointer’s request to see how her wooden leg attached. She took it off and put it back on. Then he took it off and put it back on. This happened repeatedly until he removed it and pushed it away from her.

Now somewhat frightened, Joy-Hulga watched as Manley pulled his Bible out of his briefcase. To her surprise it was hollow, containing a flask, a deck of playing cards, and an assortment of unsavory items. And then it hit her, “aren’t you just good country people?” she asked in shock.

“Come on now,” said Manley avoiding the question and moving uncomfortably closer, “we ain’t got to know one another good yet.” Joy-Hulga tried pushing away and demanding her leg back, but Manley thought she protested too much for a woman who “didn’t believe in nothing.”

“You’re a Christian!” she hissed. “You’re a fine Christian! You’re just like them all—say one thing and do another. You’re a perfect Christian, you’re…”

Manley tossed his Bible and her wooden leg back in the briefcase, and climbed out of the loft. “I’ve gotten a lot of interesting things,” he bragged, “one time I got a woman’s glass eye this way.”

O’Connor’s point is ultimately about Hulga’s nihilism and the wooden leg is an example of her usual literary tool representing the human condition known as “the grotesque.” With the theft of her leg, came the theft of her belief in nothing, for only something could hurt like that. Even more, as he disappeared for the last time, the Bible salesman turned to Joy-Hulga and said smirkingly, “you ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing ever since I was born.” Her lesson came at the hands of one who looked and talked like “good country people” but on the inside his heart was as wooden as the leg.

Try as we may to define persons by our standards, the human heart is where we find the real person and it is a treacherous place. Christ came to save sinners, we would do well to remember that no amount of window dressing, whether by clothing or perfume, can do what only he can accomplish.

We aren’t always able to separate what we believe culturally from the actual truth. And at times, people intentionally use cultural identifiers to make a statement. But don’t be fooled, while the devil may have the blue dress on, there are both floral dresses and power suits in his closet as well.

—-
Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People,” in Heritage of American Literature: Civil War to the Present, Vol. 2, ed. By James E. Miller, Jr. and Kathleen Farley (New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1991), 1917-1929. All quotations are to this edition.

Growing up in the church and then attending a Christian college taught me that marriage is a Christian “virtue.” The vast majority of my peers desired to be married and would date according to the various trends for Christian dating. In order to ensure that this virtue be at the center of their futures, my friends “courted,” they “kissed dating goodbye,” they practiced “righteous dating,” they dated with “agape love” (and no “eros”), they “dated with a purpose” or “with passion and purity” and of course never “dated just to date.” Friendship was always a springboard to something more. Friendship between women and men was not satisfactory, and often true friendship ceased once the woman or man found the *significant other* they longed for so deeply.

The church certainly encourages marriage; most Christian singles ministries are designed for match-making, so that singles can begin to experience the joy of Christian marriage. Ministry becomes a dating service. Still other churches neglect or don’t know how to approach singles ministries. I recently heard about a church in my area that needed someone to oversee the singles ministry, but no one wanted to take it up even though 40% of all adults in their congregation were single (which is true for the general population of this country as well)! Consider that these singles are probably the most mobile and available “workers” in the church, with the biggest ministry potential. Singles are the ones that can donate more of their time and money to church ministries. How long can this continue to be neglected? Paul was aware of such wisdom as well:

An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:32-34)

Here’s another statistic you might not expect: about 25% of Americans never marry or cohabitate! And I found this next one particularly astonishing:

Duration of a marriage is linked to the woman’s age at her first marriage; the older a woman is at the first marriage, the longer that marriage is likely to last. For example, 59 percent of marriages of brides under 18 end in separation or divorce within 15 years, compared with 36 percent of those married at age 20 or older.

More interesting and possibly surprising statistics along these lines can be found here: http://www.gendercenter.org/mdr.htm (although the data is from the 1990s).

Marriage is indeed important, and my point here isn’t to trivialize it. I’m not condemning Christian marriage any more than Paul is, who continues in v. 35: I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. Paul knew something that our singles ministries often miss, that Christian singleness is more than a waiting period for marriage.

But is marriage the biblical ideal for *all* gender relationships among Christians? Should marriage be our highest aim? Paul seems to be saying that the ideal is to be fully devoted to the Lord, and somehow marriage “divides” devotion. The Bible teaches us about the nature of the relationship between husbands and wives, but this topic is limited compared to all the other texts on how to treat one another as fellow Christians. The Bible uses familial metaphors: we are God’s “children,” God is our “Father,” Jesus is the “Son,” etc. Therefore, I think that the metaphor that best describes Christian relationships is indeed a familial metaphor, but the spouse isn’t the source (or ideal) for that metaphor.

It is important to know what a Christian marriage should look like, and CBE is clear that mutuality is the governing principle as taught by Eph. 5:21. But for other relationships in the church, Christians should treat one another as siblings in Christ—caring for each other’s needs and loving them because they are bound by adoption to a common family. Such a metaphor is less exclusive because there is no prerequisite or exclusion, as there is with marriage. Therefore, the metaphor for understanding gender relationships, and indeed all relationships for Christians should be that of “sibling.” And there is no place for inequality among siblings before our Creator.