Christianity and Women
By "Voltaire2"
I wanted to write a proper article on this subject but then realised that it would be difficult to avoid statements of the obvious and repetition of what has already been said by a number freethinkers. I thought it best, therefore, to be satisfied with briefly giving my answers to the propaganda disseminated on the net by Christian apologists; I’ve no doubt others who know more on the subject will have plenty to add.
Sadly, the religions of the world have been, and still are, guilty of promulgating doctrines that lead, in the worst cases, to the formation of the most despicable societies imaginable. In other instances, they have taken a subtler backbench position and supported terrible governments that they now say had nothing to do with them or their teachings. In western society today, past involvement in slavery, torture, and collaboration with the Fascist and Nazi regimes, amongst other things, are not tremendously fashionable, which is why Christian apologists have to downplay or ideally conceal, the involvement of Christian churches in these atrocities. Furthermore, they are keen to milk the credit for the courage and fortitude of individual Christians who stood up to history’s most dire tyrannies, ignoring the fact that such people did this in spite of Biblical literalism, not because of it. Let’s face it; the Bible paves the way for plenty of anti-Semitism, unashamedly condones the institution of slavery, and provides some kind of pretext for most forms of cruel and barbaric behaviour. Even the palatable doctrine of loving your neighbour, according to the dedicated fundamentalist, has nothing to do with our soppy modern day notion of love in which one would refrain from brutal execution of the object of the love (see the OT).
Due to their need to make out that atheism is just as barbaric as any religion, Christians will often remind us of the bloodbath that was Communism. I don’t know what this is supposed to have to do with me, seeing as I have never been a communist, but Communism, like most religions, is an undemocratic system, which is the fundamental cause of its unspeakably violent record: “Obey me or I’ll destroy you” is the ultimatum given by such a system. When Jo’ Stalin says it, it’s tyranny. When Jehovah says it, it’s divine justice; but I digress. Thankfully, most Christians are not literalists, but those who cling to faith in Biblical inerrancy in our day and our society, need to scrape around for some kind of justification for the heartbreak caused in its name. In a word, it seems to be a case of “I’ll do anything and say anything in order to avoid admitting that the Bible could be wrong about something".
The oppression of women by organised religions, may not, at first sight, seem comparable to Auschwitz or the Gulag, but while Auschwitz and the Gulag are widely publicised horrors, that came and went within a century, religious misogyny is an largely unsung tragedy that has gone on for thousands of years, and continues today with the same ferocity as ever. Who is to say how many lives have been taken, and how many more ruined by this frightening insanity?
I, as a man, am more passionate about gender equality than I am about any other cause. Browsing fundamental Christian sites, I notice that people like me are called “feminists”: Anyone who believes that justice and equality for all people take priority over the religious beliefs of some people is, it would seem, a “feminist”. Anyone who believes that positions in all institutions should be given or refused on the basis of merit, not gender, is a “feminist”. For that matter, anyone who believes that a rape victim should be given the right to choose is a “feminist,” and a feminist of the most detestable kind at that.
It’s a bit like the term “politically correct”. In Scotland we have a delicacy called Black Bun. A few years ago we suddenly discovered that we were not allowed to call it Black Bun anymore, and that the new name was to be “Currant Bun”. Luckily it never caught on, but that’s political correctness. Far from healing social divisions and racism, it only makes them worse. It would appear, however, that one is “politically correct” if, try as he might, he cannot see the problem with a loving homosexual relationship. Similarly, any objection launched against blind, unfounded religious arrogance is “politically correct”. In a word, it would seem that anyone who does not adhere to the literalistic dogma is presented as a wimp who incessantly panders to demagogic over-sensitivity. Ironically, however much they may decry it, political correctness is the fundamentalist lunatics’ best friend; without it they would be taken away by the men in white coats. With it they have freedom of speech, even though they would deny this right to others. Personally, I echo the words of John Shelby Spong: “Christianity must change or die”. Now who’s politically correct?
Christianity is, and always has been, a patriarchal religion for a patriarchal society. To my knowledge, female clergy have been extremely rare in the history of the church. It is only recently that, due to unprecedented pressure on the church from secular, common sense forces, women have been able to occupy the positions of authority that before were reserved for men only. Similarly, it is only very recently that the Biblical God has been recognised as anything other than fully male. It is unsurprising therefore, that Christianity has a long, depressing history of unsympathetic attitudes towards women’s rights and needs, at best, and bloody-minded injustice and cruelty, at worst. Injunctions against women teaching or holding authority over men have been taken by some Christians to be applied in every area of life, so that there have been moves in the past to stop women so much as addressing a crowd. It is, quite literally, enough to make strong men weep. In order to make out that this, as usual, was nothing to do with Christianity, apologists for Bible belief have to resort to a number of tactics that are fundamentally flawed. Frankly, I am sufficiently irate about religious misogyny without having my intelligence insulted as well. Here are what I identify as some of their most common claims, and how I respond:
- The early church gave women a far better position than they had under Judaism.
The Jews were worshipping the same God worshipped by Christians later, and it was with his knowledge and consent that they subjugated their women (Genesis 3:16). It is true that women play an important role in the gospels, but this fact appears to have been ignored by the patriarchal church, in which women were relegated to an inferior status, as shown by verses often quoted in order to defend female subordination in the church to this day: 1 Timothy 2:11-12, and 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35. See:
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/cbmw/rbmw/chapter6.html
- The subordinate position of women in the church, home and society is divinely and naturally ordained.
Bull! A woman can be a priest or pastor just as well as a man, in the same way as woman can be a business executive or a politician just as well as a man. To impose artificiality on nature and then attempt to claim that the artificiality is “natural,” is, I have noticed, a common Christian tactic, and it’s just not gonna fly. For the record, I think it is utterly reprehensible to put women down because of the events of the Garden of Eden story.
-The Bible says that men and women are equal (Galatians 3:27, 1 Corinthians 11-12). The subordination of women does not mean that they are inferior.
Well that’s good of you. Actually the Bible does not say that the two sexes are equal. 1 Corinthians 11:7 clarifies that only man represents God’s glory, and that woman was created for man, not the other way round. The two verses often used to claim that the Bible is kindly egalitarian actually refer to the unity of all believers in Christ and the inter-dependence of male and female, which does not necessarily imply equality. I would add that the notion that woman came out of man is an unfounded myth, whereas the fact that man is born of woman is exactly that - a fact (See 1 Cor.11-12).
-Women have done a great deal for the spread of Christianity since the very beginning. Paul even praised women for their work in his ministry. More recently, many women have worked as missionaries. The veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church proves that the Church is not sexist.
(See http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1997/9705fea2.asp)
I’ve no doubt that women have done a lot for Christianity. This does not mean that Christianity has done anything for women. In fact it strikes me that their efforts have been repaid with humiliating subjugation - at best. Women of faith naturally do not feel oppressed or marginalized, because they believe that the position they have been given is their rightful place. The veneration of Mary, on the contrary, was a demotion. According to Jesus and the Lost Goddess by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The earliest Christians were actually Gnostics who conceived of a Goddess and a God. The literalistic Church of Rome subordinated the Goddess and blended her with Mary, the “Queen of Heaven” and “Mother of God”, who, at the end of the day, was only human. The veneration of Mary, however beautiful, has always been a burden to women. It has lumbered them with a human role model who gave birth without having sex; something the church has traditionally exalted as the function of the ideal woman (although women cannot physically do it). It’s an impossible lead to follow. It is also worthy of note that Jesus implies in Luke 11:27-28 that his mother is no more special than anyone who obeys his teaching.
-Christianity has given more dignity to women than paganism did.
The Afghan Taliban also spoke of giving women “dignity”.
Paganism was very diverse and some cultures treated women better than others. To say that Pagan cultures contemporary with the Old and New Testaments invariably treated women as inferiors is an oversimplification. Even if they did, Christian societies have been at least as bad. Classical Greece and Rome were very much a man’s world, rather like most Christian societies in history! This was not, however the case in all pagan societies. The Celts, for example, developed their own form of Christianity partly based on their old pagan beliefs. This Celtic spirituality gave much higher status to women, but was suppressed by the biblically literalistic Roman Church. See:
http://www.linegar2.demon.co.uk/aseticsm.htm
-What about biblical heroines?
As far as I’m aware, every female role model in the Bible is valued for her obedience to men or to the male deity. Christians might argue that men in the Bible are also expected to be obedient to God. This is true, but the pronouns used to describe God are consistently male, and men are not commanded to obey or submit to women. All the Kings in the book of Kings are men, and so are all the significant prophets. Needless to say, Moses and Jesus are likewise both male. Take a look at this:
“The Bible orders women to obey their husbands and to submit to them in an honorable manner, making reference to and recalling those godly women of old who had obeyed their men with all dignity and honor. We find the apostle Peter, in his first letter, chapter three, saying:
Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without talk by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self; the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women, of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master... (I Peter 3:1)”
I pinched it from:
http://www.answeringislam.org/Women/place.html#christian
-Personal worth is not measured by rank or status.
And your point is? This is correct but it dodges the issue completely. Positions should be given on the basis of merit, not gender. Subordination of women because they are women is unethical and perverted.
-Jesus did not have any female disciples, so we can’t have any woman priests.
It’s lame. See: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0311frs.asp
Here you also get an opportunity to see the misogyny of the early church fathers. The woman-hating Tertullian is respected in the church today and his teachings are evidently still considered to be binding. While the Roman Catholic Church stubbornly refuses to lift the ban on women priests, it’s morality, with bloody-minded prohibitions of contraception and abortion, even for rape victims, weighs far more heavily on women than on men. Oh, and did anyone see The Magdalene Sisters? I’d still like to know if the Vatican knew about these institutions and/or did anything about them (?)
http://www.netreach.net/~steed/magdalen.html
-In Ephesians 5:25 husbands are commanded to love their wives.
The relationship between husband and wife established in the New Testament is one where the wife is subordinate but the husband is supposed to be nice to her. Apologists often take the second part of this and use it to present the overall teaching as a fair deal for the wife, which it isn’t. Again, she is subordinate in rank merely because of her gender. Apologists claim that this relationship between husband and wife is “natural”. The claim has no basis in fact.
The symbolism of Christ and the Church is used for the husband and wife respectively. The superficially pretty little illustration is in fact another insult to women: Men get to play Christ, the lord and redeemer, while women only get to play His church, the fallen and redeemed.
Finally, from the above samples it is easy to identify the top ten signs you’re a Christian sexist:
1.You take the Garden of Eden story to mean that things go to hell anytime a woman is allowed to lead a man or men (even though Elizabeth I of England was a more successful monarch than Charles I of England).
2.You use the term “Divine Subordination” without realising how stupid it sounds.
3.You go off on insulting tangents about how women are not inferior to men anymore than a street sweeper is inferior to a chief executive.
4.You try to claim that cruel and senseless injunctions against women teaching men are somehow “for our own good”.
5.You insist that Christianity has been better for women than Islam and fail to notice the fact that both have actually been pretty bloody awful.
6.You believe that a foetus in a woman’s womb is more important than she is.
7.You oppose all abortion and contraception but would also vote for anyone who promised to make life miserable for single mothers.
8.You are a woman who has been brainwashed into believing that you and other women should all be subordinate together-Amen!
9. You think that a system whereby bright, well-educated young women with dazzling qualifications are kept at home to do the ironing will somehow lead to a better society.
10. You try to claim that sex discrimination is not sex discrimination anymore if you can put a different name to it.
If this all seems a bit acrimonious and distasteful, I’ll try to finish on a sweeter note by saying that myself and others like me just want to see changes, not excuses. We’re simply getting a bit tired of this incessant scramble for new ways of refusing to listen to what we’re saying.
Recommended links:
Women in the Bible:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html
The Rejection of Pascal’s Wager provides an excellent overview of biblical treatment of women:
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/womenbible.html
Humanism by Joe:
http://www.humanismbyjoe.com/christianity_and_women.htm
The Freedom from Religion Foundation:
http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/women.php
The danger posed to women by the Religious Right in the USA today:
http://www.theocracywatch.org/women2.htm
Some Christians agree with me, but will they prevail? :
http://www.womanpriest.org/