About Rape: We Still Just Don't Get it

Over the past week I've had my attention caught a number of times about the whole issue of rape: what it is, what it isn't, what is the right way to address it-- and, most noticeably, a number of clearly wrong ways to address it.

The first thing that came to my attention was when well-known columnist George Will wrote an article about what he called "the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. 'sexual assault.'"  In that article he decries the fact that

[n]ow the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.

Using scare quotes around the words "sexual assault" twice, Will questions any definition of those words that go beyond "forcible sexual penetration." Will says that the real problem on college campuses isn't rape at all, but interference by the federal government:

Academia is learning that its attempts to create victim-free campuses — by making everyone hypersensitive, even delusional, about victimizations — brings increasing supervision by the regulatory state that progressivism celebrates.

George Will believes that ideas about rape that go beyond his narrow definition are "delusional" and lead to a victim mentality.  But what Will actually demonstrates is that he has no real understanding of what rape and sexual assault actually are. As Samantha Field at "Defeating the Dragons" points out, what Will thinks about rape and sexual assault simply buys into a number of myths and misconceptions: that if you don't fight back, it's not rape; that if you're drunk, it's not rape; that if you've had consensual sex with the person in the past, it's not rape; that if you don't report it immediately, it's not rape.

But here's what the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network says about it:

[Unless] both people are old enough to consent, have the capacity to consent, and agreed to the sexual contact. . . [it] is a crime. It does not matter whether the other person is an ex-boyfriend or a complete stranger, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve had sex in the past. If it is nonconsensual this time, it is rape. . . If you were so drunk or drugged that you passed out and were unable to consent, it was rape. Both people must be conscious and willing participants.

This definition is not about insisting that sexual partners, no matter how committed and mutually trusting, must stop at each point of an encounter and ask permission to proceed.  But it is about being certain you are not forcing yourself on someone who really doesn't want it.  It's not that hard to ask, when encountering reluctance, "Are you into this? Is this what you want?" And of course words or actions indicating "no" should be respected!

What rape and sexual assault really are is actually fairly simple: deliberate sexual contact without consent. But as a society, we seem to still have a lot of trouble wrapping our minds around this, and it doesn't help when well-known leaders in the media confuse the issue in ways that blame the victims and excuse the perpetrators.

The second thing brought to my attention this week was one of the big misconceptions that doesn't often get talked about: the gender stereotyping that says men can't really be victims of rape. When a rape victim's story is disbelieved, marginalized or treated with skepticism, it revictimizes the rape survivor, and male survivors are no exception.  The men's stories on this AskReddit thread are heartbreaking to read and are not misogynist or inflammatory against women or feminism, as some male advocacy groups can be.  But boys who are under the age of consent can be groomed sexually by female authority figures such as teachers, just as easily as girls can.  And men in general may be stronger than women in general, but an individual woman can be strong enough to force herself on a smaller man-- and men, just like women, can be drugged, or assaulted when they've had too much to drink.  Male victims should not be shamed about their manhood or mocked for being "wimps."  They should not have the police refuse to take them seriously, and they should not be laughed at by society.  

Rape is rape, no matter who it happens to, and these false assumptions about men and rape are just as bad as false assumptions about women and rape.  A woman should not be told it couldn't have happened because she was dating the guy, or married to him.  And a man should not be told it couldn't have happened because he's a man.

Finally, and worst of all, was an incident that happened Friday, June 13th, where Christianity Today's Leadership Journal published the story of an ex-youth minister now serving jail time for sexually grooming and then having sex with one of the minor girls in his care.  Somehow Leadership Journal overlooked that this perpetrator was presenting the situation as a consensual, adulterous affair rather than the ongoing rape of a minor who was legally incapable of consent.  The writer said nothing about remorse for the irreparable harm done to this poor child, instead focusing on his own losses as a result of his behavior.  Leadership Journal treated him like a fully repentant confessor when he clearly was far from it. 

When readers responded with outrage and dismay and began a Twitter campaign called #TakeDownThatPost, Leadership Journal responded with a full apology that I believe is sincere.  But the fact remains that if our society doesn't get it about what rape is, many of our Christian leaders really haven't been getting it. 

As Tamara Rice at Hope Fully Known eloquently explains in her open letter to Leadership Journal:

You let a convicted statutory rapist tell his “side” of things in a pages-long post where the victim’s youth was relegated to a side note and the word “abuse” is never mentioned. You let him discuss it as if it were a mutual, consensual affair, as if you have forgotten the influence that a 30-something youth pastor would have over a vulnerable teenage girl. Maybe you don’t know. Maybe you don’t understand how these things work. If you don’t … if you’re really that naive, I beg you to start studying cases like this. Follow the life of a teenage girl in a scenario like this as she journeys into adulthood.

 “But he says it was ‘mutual,’ ” is probably your argument. And, sure, she might have thought it was “mutual” at the time too. Do you understand that’s what happens when a man with power and control sets his eyes on someone vulnerable who is NOT his for the taking? . . . 

Do you get that he is in jail FOR A REASON? Do you even understand what a horror it is that you let her abuser go on and on and on for pages and pages talking like this was an adult consensual affair, when she was obviously young enough that it LANDED HIM IN JAIL? Do you have any inkling of what he’s done to her and her life and her self-esteem and her sexuality and her emotional health and her spiritual health and everything about her not just for right now but most likely for years to come? . . .

Any supposed warnings to other pastors out there about a scenario like this should have simply read:

“If you find yourself attracted to one of your students, get out of youth ministry ASAP and get yourself into counseling, because you are contemplating doing something against the law. You are entertaining the idea of ruining another person’s life. You are toying with the notion of doing something that makes you a sex offender. YOU ARE CONTEMPLATING A SEXUAL CRIME. Wake up and get yourself out of ministry and get yourself some help before it’s too late.”

THAT’S a warning. And if this man were truly repentant AND UNDERSTOOD THE GRAVITY OF WHAT HE’S DONE, that’s what he would have said. 

We don’t need even one more sex offender preying on our kids under the guise of doing great ministry, and we certainly don’t need even one more evangelical ministry that doesn’t get it. . . [This] speaks volumes about why this is a problem in our churches. It speaks volumes about all the advocacy work still left to do in regard to sexual abuse. [Emphases in original]

I really don't think there's much, if anything, I could add to that.  Ms. Rice has told it exactly like it is, and I'm glad Leadership Journal responded as responsibly as they did.  They took down their post but didn't try to hide, understanding that this was an important learning experience that needed to be recorded for future conversation.

We need to learn, as individuals, as a society and as Christians and Christian churches, what "rape" and "sexual assault" and "consent" or "nonconsensual" really mean.  We need to stop blaming victims and excusing perpetrators.  We need to deliberately and with forethought set ourselves against the assumptions and gender stereotypes and misconceptions that make this about anything other than a heinous, criminal reversal of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

That's the only Bible verse I'm going to quote today, because I think it more than covers the subject. The concept of consent is simply an embodiment of Christ's Golden Rule.

It's high time we wrapped our minds around it. 

The "Feminization" of the Church

In recent years a lot of people have been talking about why in most Christian churches there is an approximately 60-40 ratio of women to men.  This 2006 Biola Magazine article puts it like this:

There are generally more women than men in every type of church, in every part of the world. . .A traditional explanation is that women are more spiritual than men. But the leaders of [a new masculinity] movement suggest that the church’s music, messages and ministries cater to women. . . The result of this feminization is that many men, even Christian men, view churches as “ladies clubs” and don’t go — or they often go to please their wives. 

The phrase almost always used to describe this phenomenon is "feminization."  In other words, the presence of a higher percentage of women in churches is not simply a higher percentage of women-- it represents that the church is, or has somehow become, feminine.

The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has this to say about "feminine Christianity":

Walk into the average evangelical church in America, and you will likely sing lyrics such as “I want my life to be a love song for you, Jesus” and “I want to fall in love with you.”

Then you might hear a sermon encouraging Christians to be “intimate” with Jesus and attend a “care group” where everyone is expected to share their feelings.

Such tactics might appeal to women, but they are at least partially unbiblical and push men away from Christianity, according to Randy Stinson, executive director of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) and assistant professor of gender and family studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS).

“Where are the men in our churches today?” Stinson said in a lecture sponsored by the SBTS theology school council March 29. “We have a crisis going on in the local church. Number one, men aren’t coming. And number two, when they are coming, they’ve [sic] marginalized, they’re being passive, they’re being pushed to the side.”

Christianity Today summarizes it like this:

Today a growing body of literature is leveling its sights on the church, suggesting that men are uninvolved in church life because the church doesn't encourage authentic masculine participation.

The same article quotes controversial pastor Mark Driscoll:

In Driscoll's opinion, the church has produced "a bunch of nice, soft, tender, chickified church boys. … Sixty percent of Christians are chicks," he explains, "and the forty percent that are dudes are still sort of chicks."

The article also quotes David Murrow, author of Why Men Hate Going to Church (Thomas Nelson, 2004):

"[W]omen believe the purpose of Christianity is to find "a happy relationship with a wonderful man"—Jesus—whereas men recognize God's call to "save the world against impossible odds." . . . While the church was masculine, it fulfilled its purpose. But in the 19th century, women "began remaking the church in their image" (and they continue to do so), which moved the church off course.

Needless to say, this line of thinking isn't exactly complimentary to women!  It implies that whatever is "feminine" encapsulates everything that's gone wrong with the church. A popular book on the subject even goes so far as to take the title The Church Impotent - because apparently a majority of women in the church means the church is emasculated, and therefore powerless and ineffectual. Even though men still hold the vast majority of the leadership positions.

There are several things that need to be addressed here.  First, what might be some objective reasons why there are more women than men in most churches?  Second, what does it mean to say the church is "feminine," and is that a helpful or accurate assessment?  Third, what is the best way to address this situation?

Why are there more women than men in most churches? 

One reason that is often given (and one that is less denigrating to women) is that women are just naturally more religious than men. However, if that were true, then a similar female-to-male ratio ought to hold true in other major world religions.  But it doesn't.  Christianity is the only major world religion where female attendance is higher than male attendance. As this United Kingdom study states:

Christian women reported slightly higher levels of religious activity than did the men, while among the other three religious groups, levels of reported religious activity were markedly lower among women than among men. How can we explain these gender differences in reported religious observance? Among the Jews and Muslims, there were marked differences between women and men, in keeping with observations about the roles of women and men in these traditions. These differences are also consistent with the view that men’s prescribed religious activities in traditional religion are more prestigious, and thus more likely to be engaged in. Hindu men also reported greater levels of religious activity than did Hindu women.

The fact is that most of the time in the other world religions (with the exception, perhaps, of some reformed branches), women are actively barred from full participation in many of the everyday practices of religion.  They are often kept separate from the men, hidden behind screens or walls, or required to keep silent.  Perhaps, then, another question we ought to be asking, instead of why there are relatively fewer men participating in Christianity, is what is it about Christianity that encourages so many women to participate?  As this article on religion in the United Kingdom in The Telegraph says:

One possible reason why the Church has always attracted so many women is that the theological education on offer on a Sunday is the same for both sexes. Men and women (generally speaking) have always sat together in Church and are expected to participate equally in the liturgy and in prayer. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that the only other religious denomination anecdotally reported as having rising numbers of women is Reform Judaism. Its congregations are mixed whereas in Orthodox synagogues the men and women sit separately and only boys receive the rigorous schooling in the Hebrew scriptures. . . .

An often-ignored fact in all of the hand-wringing about fewer men in church is that the early church in Roman times apparently also attracted more women than men.  As this Huffington Post article on The Power and Presence of Women in the Earliest Churches states:

Some readers may find it surprising to learn that a woman shortage blighted the ancient world, with about 130-140 men for every 100 women. This is so because many female infants were left to die of exposure and because of the mortal risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Yet both Christians and their critics observed a marked overrepresentation of women in the early churches, a fact the critics used to their advantage: "What respectable group caters to women?" Why, one wonders, did so many women find the churches appealing if women's contributions were not valued?
The answer is, simply, that the early churches did value women's contributions. 

This article on women in the early church from the Christian History Institute corrorobates this:

Celsus, a 2nd-century detractor of the faith, once taunted that the church attracted only “the silly and the mean and the stupid, with women and children.” His contemporary, Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, acknowledged in his Testimonia that “Christian maidens were very numerous” and that it was difficult to find Christian husbands for all of them. These comments give us a picture of a church disproportionately populated by women. . . It is no surprise that women were active in the early church. From the very start—the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus—women were significantly involved. . .The involvement of women continued in the first few decades of the church, attested by both biblical and extra-biblical sources.

The fact is that a major appeal of Christianity at its inception was that it valued and uplifted those who were marginalized in their own societies.  The same Celsus quoted above also said that Christianity was “a religion of women, children and slaves.” As Paul indicated in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. 1 Cor. 1:26-29

 A similar phenomenon appears to be occurring in the rise of Christianity in places where it has not had a long-standing, traditional hold, such as in China.  Christianity continues to grow rapidly in China, with up to 70% of the new converts being women. In this Christian Post article, the reason given is similar to what was going on in the early church in Roman times:

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said on its website that Christianity mainly attracts people with low social status, including the poor, the women and older people.
It said that while half of Christians had completed their primary education, only 2.6 percent of them attained a college degree or higher.

Christianity's attraction of the marginalized is one of its strengths, not one of its weaknesses. On the other hand, this factor probably doesn't fully explain why there is a greater percentage of women in modern Western churches today-- especially since many branches of Christianity are now seen by society as limiting women, not empowering them.  An important question to ask, though, is how long this female-male ratio has been occurring.  The idea that this is a recent phenomenon, rising with the advent of feminism, is certainly false.  The Biola Magazine article I quoted earlier states:

The gender gap began as early as the 13th century, according to some church historians. Others say it began during the Industrial Revolution. . . Industrialization forced men to seek work away from home, in factories and offices, which created a split between the public and private spheres of life. The public sphere became secularized through the new values of competition and self-interest, and the private sphere came to represent the old values of nurturing and religion. . . Thus, religion came to be seen as for women and children and not as relevant to the “real” world of business, politics and academia, she said. Soon, in churches, women began to outnumber men. . .  So, male pastors began to adapt churches to their female demographic.

The rise in the "two spheres" concept popularized in Victorian times may be a factor, but the disproportionality of women in the church, at least in some kinds of congregations, has certainly been documented earlier than that.  American colonial preacher Cotton Mather wrote about it in the 1600s, for instance, though not all colonial churches had this issue. The book Under the Cope of Heaven by Professor Patricia U. Bonomi offers an interesting theory: that male attendance decreased in American colonial churches in inverse proportion to the increase in the role of clergy at the expense of laity:

As the ministers' rising professionalism led them to reduce the laity's power in church government, laymen proved less amenable to a a more passive role than did laywomen. . . [Therefore] Feminization appears to be linked less to the secularization of the masculine sphere than to the loss of power by lay males to a professionalizing clergy.

If this is true, then the Encyclopedia Brittanica's entry on clergy and laity in Eastern Orthodoxy could help explain why there is a more equal sex ratio in these churches:

The emphasis on communion and fellowship as the basic principle of church life inhibited the development of clericalism, the tradition of enhancing the power of the church hierarchy. The early Christian practice of lay participation in episcopal elections never disappeared completely in the East. In modern times it has been restored in several churches, including those in the United States. Besides being admitted, at least in some areas, to participation in episcopal elections, Orthodox laymen often occupy positions in church administration and in theological education. In Greece almost all professional theologians are laymen. Laymen also frequently serve as preachers.

This would also explain why, in my own church (an Independent Church of Christ), where laywomen and laymen alike participate in teaching (both in children's ministry and adult bible studies), baptizing, serving communion, collecting and counting the offering, greeting, ushering, and giving short teachings prior to the main sermon, I see roughly half men and half women when I look around the pews on any given Sunday morning.  My own church (though I have not done an actual count) doesn't seem particularly "feminized."

But this doesn't explain why in some churches where lay participation is high, there is still a higher percentage of women.  This study from 1990 states that in American Pentecostal churches the female-male ratio was at that time as high as 2 to 1, while in Baptist churches it was 3 to 2.  (This study, however, concludes that women are simply more religious for various reasons, failing to take into account that this is a Christianity-only issue, so I won't be quoting it further here.)

But there is another cause that I think is, and has been, very prevalent in Western churches for a long time, and is likely more prevalent in Baptist and Pentecostal and similar churches, because of their strict limitations on women's roles. It's a self-perpetuating stigma that, once established, is very hard to defeat: the stigma known as "gender contamination."  This Forbes article defines"gender contamination" as the idea that when something is perceived as being a women's thing, men want nothing to do with it.  It's the reason why men won't drink "diet" soda and have had to have differently-named low-calorie versions marketed specially to them.  It's the reason why men resist using lotions and moisturizers even if they have neutral, non-flowery scents, and why some companies advertise their products by denigrating competitors with such words as "precious" and "princess."  In short, in our "male mystique" focused society, boys who believe girls have cooties still believe deep-down, when they grow into men, that women have cooties too.

There are still some very deep-rooted misogynistic elements in modern Western culture-- and this, I think, has a lot to do with why evangelicals like Mark Driscoll and the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood are so distressed at the idea that churches are "feminized."  If churches have more women in them, then churches themselves have cooties, and it's up to the biblical manhood movement to remove the stigma by masculinizing the church.  Just as soda advertisements now insist that certain brands are not for women, and certain body washes emphasize how very manly their scents are, the answer in the minds of these Christians is to re-market the church as a manly institution.

The Christianity Today article I linked to earlier puts it this way:

These authors . . . suggest that the solution is to inject the church with a heavy dose of testosterone. In other words, allowing women to create Jesus in their image has emasculated him; thus, regaining a biblical image of Christ is as simple as re-masculating him. The masculinity movement's solution assumes that Jesus came to model genuine masculinity. . .  imply[ing] that when the church adopts the supposedly male psyche, it fulfills its purpose, but when it conforms to the supposedly female psyche, it becomes aberrant.

Which leads me to my second question:

Are these categories of "masculine" and "feminine," when applied to churches and church services, helpful or accurate?

Jeffrey Miller, in the Christian Standard's Nov. 2011 article Common Sense on "The Feminization of the Church", discusses two of the main proposals for masculinizing the church: first, that churches sponsor "manly" and challenging group activities such as hiking or kayaking, and second, that church services discard or at least strictly limit "feminine" songs about love and intimacy with Christ in favor of "masculine" songs about God's power and authority.  Here's what he discovered regarding sponsoring "manly" activities through his own church:

I wanted to test the theory that men are more interested than women in rigorous and even dangerous recreation, so I devised a stealthy experiment and formed a hiking group. Anyone is welcome to join this group, but all who express interest are told we do not take leisurely jaunts. Instead, each outing has some significant challenge, the most common being distance—our longest hike, for example, exceeded 26 miles. Other obstacles have included bitter windchills, steep climbs, sheer descents, black bears, yellow jackets, and two territorial rattlesnakes. 

I sent invitations to an equal number of men and women. The list has grown and now consists of 20 men and 20 women. I tell people we hike to stay in shape, rise to the challenge, enjoy God’s creation, and get away from it all. While all these are true, I haven’t till now shared one other important goal of mine: to track the ratio of female to male participants. After 19 monthly hikes, having invited an equal number of men and women to join in rigorous outdoor adventures, 33 men and 57 women have taken up the challenge. Surprised? Me too! I thought the ratio would drift toward 50-50.

And with regards to "manly" music, here's his response:

Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI) lists the 100 most frequently used songs in its database. If contemporary praise music is problematically feminine in both lyrics and tone, as the Driscoll-Murrow crowd avers, we should expect the top 100 list to be dominated—or at least infiltrated—by women. In fact, however, the list includes 145 male and 16 female composers. Thus more than 90 percent of the composers writing today’s most popular praise songs are male!

Moreover, some of the most “masculine” songs are written by women (and some of the most “feminine” songs are written by men). Consider Twila Paris’s “He is Exalted,” Jennie Lee Riddle’s “Revelation Song,” and Brooke Fraser’s “Desert Song,” all of which employ metaphors of power. In contrast, Lenny LeBlanc and Paul Baloche’s “Above All” and Martin Nystrom’s “As the Deer” both feature elegant melodies and calming images from nature. 

Going back to the 19th century, Fanny Crosby’s lyrics are not predominantly what we would call “feminine.” And William Bradbury’s melodies are not especially “masculine.” In search of a nonscientific test for these statements, I asked my mom for her five favorite Fanny Crosby songs and my dad for his five favorite William Bradbury songs. . . My mom’s favorite Fanny Crosby songs are “Blessed Assurance,” “To God Be the Glory,” “Praise Him! Praise Him!” “Redeemed!” and “Draw Me Nearer.” My dad’s favorite William Bradbury hymns are “Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” “Jesus Loves Me,” “The Solid Rock,” “He Leadeth Me,” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” Judge for yourselves, but I believe the list of hymns by Crosby is more vigorous and Bradbury’s list is more intimate. 

I conclude, therefore, that a central problem with the manly music argument is that men both write and perform the overwhelming number of songs that Driscoll, Murrow, and others consider too feminine. If anyone is guilty of feminizing the church’s music, it’s not women!

In short, the categories of "masculine" and "feminine" are cultural constructs that often have very little to do with the actual proclivities of real men and women.  Women don't necessarily focus on relationship and men on power in worship, nor do only men enjoy rigorous and challenging physical activity.

Thomas G. Long's article Why Do Men Stay Away? in The Christian Century finds these categories insulting to both men and women:

Why are men and the church often at odds? Sadly, many of the answers are as insulting as they are misguided. . .They argue that men, loaded as they are with testosterone, have a proclivity to impulsive, risk-taking, occasionally violent action—exactly the behavior disallowed in the soft world of worship. Given this theory, what enticements can the wimpy church possibly offer us men when we compare it to the joys of hiding away in a man cave, stuffing our maws with pizza and beer as we watch Da Bears and heading out after sundown to rip off a few wheel covers and rumble in the Wal-Mart parking lot?

Others propose a more political and historical explanation, namely that centuries of male control of the church have yielded to an ineluctable force of feminization. Pastel worship, passive and sentimental images of the Christian life, handholding around the communion table and hymns that coo about lover-boy Jesus who "walks with me and talks with me" have replaced stronger, more masculine themes. . . 

Really? The feminine erosion of the church? As David Foster Wallace said in a different context, this is an idea "so stupid it practically drools." Even sillier are the proposed masculine remedies. One website suggests "Ten Ways to Man Up Your Church," beginning with obtaining "a manly pastor" who projects "a healthy masculinity." This patently ignores strong women clergy, of course, but it also denigrates the capacity of men to recognize and respond to able leadership regardless of gender or stereotypes.

Categories of masculinity and femininity that reduce men to biceps and women to clinging vines are hardly biblical.  None of the heroes and heroines of the faith presented in the pages of Scripture acted this way.  Nor do the Scriptures uphold these stereotypical behaviors as virtuous or godly.  On the contrary, the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23, " love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" include both typically "masculine" and typically "feminine" virtues that are for men and women alike.

And there's a real problem when traits associated with women are denigrated as a kind of sickness that is weakening the church.  As Jeffrey Miller put it in his Christian Standard article:

If the church manifests feminine characteristics, and if it does so more than it once did, then why would this make the church impotent? Such a claim is not only illogical, but offensive. Surely it is ungentlemanly to say to women that the problem with the church is that it’s becoming more and more like them.

How fair is it to assign categories to women that you then belittle and blame them for?  Surely it's possible to attract more men to our churches without communicating to women that they shouldn't exist?

So what is the best way to address this problem?

The church is not a product like a soda or a moisturizer, that you can market to men by claiming that it's not for women.  Nor is it helpful to bifurcate church experience so that the women get all the comfort and love while men get all the challenging calls to discipleship.  Men and women are real people, not stereotypes. Men often need comfort and love, and women have no less need for challenge.  Jesus wasn't speaking only to men when He said "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me (Luke 9:23)."  Nor was He talking only to women when He said, "Come to Me. . . and you will find rest for your souls; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Matthew 11:30)." 

Brownyn Lea recently wrote a guest post on Preston Yancey's blog entitled  What Women Want: the Jesus of the Gospels.  She said:

Jesus is a comforter, a healer, a Savior. "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild", the suffering Servant, the loving rescuer. That Jesus rightfully and perfectly holds all these titles is proof that those nurturing qualities do not belong exclusively to the female domain. Jesus IS the epitome of love, of care, of welcome.

However . . .what I want from church is this - a robust preaching of the Jesus of the Gospels. I want to hear about the Jesus who demanded loyalty, who commanded authority from storms, sinners and satanic forces, who said vexing and frustrating and wild things. I want to hear preaching which is not just faithful to His words but to His TONE: of comfort but also of rebuke, of welcome but also of warning. I want to hear His dares, His call to come and die, His challenge to make hard choices. I want the Jesus of the gospels who does not just meet our needs, but who calls us to bold and courageous adventure, to self-sacrifice, to taking risks. I want the Jesus who promises huge rewards for huge sacrifices, who embraces fiesty Peter and wayward Mary and touchy-feely John.

I want the Jesus who welcomed the little children, but also the Jesus with eyes like a flame of fire, with feet of burnished bronze and a sharp two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. Whatever that wild imagery means, I want to grapple with it. I want the Jesus who inspires my awe and calls forth my worship: a gospel from The Gospels. That's the Jesus I want. That's the Jesus I need: the one who is worthy of the honor, adoration and allegiance of men and women alike.

It's a woman who is saying these things, articulating the need that Christian men and women alike feel for the whole Jesus-- neither a masculinized prize-fighting caricature nor a feminized weepy-and-wimpy caricature.  And if we don't want our Jesus to be a caricature, we ought not to be caricaturing His male and female followers.

Thomas G. Long's Christian Century article hits the nail on the head, I think:

Perhaps a clue can be found in a Christian group that attracts men and women in roughly equal numbers: Eastern Orthodoxy. . . The finding of religion journalist Frederica Mathewes-Green [is] that Orthodoxy's main appeal is that it's "challenging." One convert said, "Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it is also about overcoming myself. . ." 

Yes, some churchgoers are satisfied with feel-good Christianity, but I think many Christians—women and men—yearn for a more costly, demanding, life-changing discipleship. Perhaps women are more patient when they don't find it, or more discerning of the deeper cross-bearing opportunities that lie beneath the candied surface.

Why do more women than men go to church in modern Western Christianity?  Perhaps most women don't really care all that much for sterilized, feel-good niceness in the church either-- but women are usually the ones responsible for getting their kids to church, so they deny themselves, pick up their crosses and get out the door.  Maybe Christian leaders ought to be applauding their commitment rather than blaming them for what's wrong with the service.

Maybe rather than capitulating to worldly gender-contamination and male fear of female cooties, publicly visible male Christian leaders should stop maligning femaleness and trying to market Jesus and the church as masculine.  In fact, maybe they should stop trying to market the church at all.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Ultimately, "feminization" isn't the real problem.  Women aren't the problem.  Let's face it, in the vast majority of churches the decisions aren't getting made by women-- but Adam's tendency to blame "this woman You gave me" for his choices is still visible in male church leaders today.

I firmly believe that if churches will just preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, both its comfort and its challenge-- Christ will take care of the rest.  Men will rise to the challenge to pick up their crosses and endure the stigma of gender contamination in order to identify with Christ.  And this will in time erase the notion that church is a "women's thing."

Finally, churches do need to pay attention to who they're reaching and who they're not.  But perhaps we ought to be concentrating less on the ratio of females to males and start focusing more on attracting people of other races and economic situations.  Perhaps the real problem is not so much that there are 60 percent women and 40 percent men, but that all of them are white and middle class.

In the end, the Holy Spirit is the one who can help us most.  Let's humble ourselves and ask.

The "Jezebel Spirit" Teaching: Priming Churches for Spiritual Abuse

It's a story my husband Jeff likes to tell from before we were married.

We were both members of a coercive Christian group of "charismatic" persuasion-- meaning that the group believed in supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Like most charismatic groups, our church believed that Christians and churches could be harassed by, or even come under the power of, demonic spirits. We believed God had called us to "rebuke" such spirits in the name of Jesus and drive them out of our lives and the lives of others.

One evening Jeff was sitting in the living room of the apartment he shared with his roommate (I'll call him Mike). Mike's best friend (let's say his name was Dave) was visiting, as he often did.  The evening news came on.

Dave stared for a minute at the female news anchor, who was speaking in an assertive, confident voice.  He raised his hand in a karate-chop motion and shook it at the screen.  "I rebuke that Jezebel spirit in the name of Jesus!" he said.  Mike nodded agreement.

My future husband stopped himself from rolling his eyes.  "Why are you doing that?" he asked.

"Look at her!" Dave said.  "She's controlling and bossy.  She thinks she can take over a man's role.  She's got a Jezebel spirit!"

Jeff sighed, but didn't try to argue. There wasn't really any point.  Mike and Dave's ideas were right in line with our church's teachings.  Jeff's disagreement would only be looked at askance.  But even then he didn't see that simply doing a news anchor's job while female indicated the presence of a "Jezebel spirit."

Jeff and I left the charismatic movement when we left our Maranatha Campus Ministries church, some years after we were married.  I have nothing against the charismatic movement in general; I think their emphasis on real-life experience of the divine is a valuable and needed part of Christianity as a whole.  But even some charismatics have problems with belief in the existence of a "Jezebel spirit." As my online friend and respected colleague "TL" at SpoudazO Logos says,

It is unfortunate that there are those who have added to Scripture to claim that an evil woman of the Old Testament is now a female demon going about influencing mostly women to be like her in Christian churches. There is no biblical ‘spirit of jezebel’. What there is, is a real woman who lived and died. . . Her spirit does not roam the earth in the form of a demon and influence people.

Unfortunately, as far as online charismatic voices are concerned, TL is definitely in the minority. Googling "Jezebel Spirit" yields multiple websites dedicated to describing the supposed Jezebel spirit and giving points on how to fight it. There are also a number of books specifically about the Jezebel spirit: Iowa pastor Francis Frangipane wrote one simply named The Jezebel Spirit in 2001. Author John Paul Jackson put out a similar title in 2002. Florida minister named Jonas Clark has a website containing several pages devoted to stopping this evil spirit-- he even offers a CD learning course which will cost you $150 to break free from being Jezebel's eunuch. I even found a sales guide listing 10 or 20 titles on defeating this supposed "controlling" spirit and its corollary, the "passive" Ahab spirit.

There is even a website dedicated to information about this spirit: jezebelspirit.net.  To be fair, they may not subscribe to the idea that the Jezebel spirit is actually the same being as the woman Jezebel who was married to Ahab, king of Israel, as described in 1 Kings 16 through 2 Kings 9.  The way I understood the "spirit of Jezebel" when I was in Maranatha was that this was an evil spirit that possessed both Queen Jezebel and another woman called by the same name in Revelation 2:20-23, and which still influences women to manipulate, seduce and control men.

But what I found later, in the years when I went back to everything I had been taught as a Christian and searched the Bible in a reassessment of my beliefs, was that there is actually no biblical support for believing in a "Jezebel spirit" at all-- whether as the spirit of a woman in history which has become a female demon, or as a demonic spirit which possessed that woman and is still active today.  Neither the 1st - 2nd Kings stories, or the Revelation passage, say anything whatsoever about a demonic spirit.  Rather, the Kings passages describe the real activities of a real woman, and the Revelation passage uses the symbolic name "Jezebel" to refer to a woman whom the writer considered to be committing similar sins to those of the original Jezebel.

Charismatics are taught to test everything -- every experience, every teaching, every doctrine-- against the Scriptures, which are the check and balance to keep their emphasis on the supernatural and on spiritual experience from leading them away from orthodoxy.  I remember how carefully this was pressed on us when I was in Maranatha.  But the teaching on the spirit of Jezebel turned out to be only one of many areas where I found, on re-examination, that the Bible actually didn't say anything like what I'd been taught in Maranatha.

So why am I bringing this up now?

Because it appears to me that the teachings about the Jezebel spirit are continuing to escalate even past the beliefs I once had about it, to the point where Charisma News columnist Jennifer Leclaire says there is a "spiritual warfare culture" where this spirit has "rock star status" (Leclaire actually believes in these spirits herself, though she is one of the voices cautioning common sense and restraint.) This faithsite.com article considers the Jezebel spirit to be the primary spirit that attacks churches and church leaders in an attempt to control and take over, while a lesser "Absalom spirit" acts as a sort of chief lieutenant.

The spirit of Jezebel is called "a spirit of witchcraft."  This is fitting because this entire set of spiritual warfare teachings is teetering on the edge of a witch hunt.

And, as most witch hunts do, it is primed to target primarily women.

Looking more closely at the faithsite.com article linked above, here is how the Jezebel spirit is defined:

Jezebel is not just a principality or power. It is a stronghold of the second highest classification of demons listed in Ephesians Chapter 6. It is a “ruler of the darkness of this world” holed up in a strong and unbroken woman. . . Jezebel exists to undermine the authority and anointing of the man of God. 

No scriptural authority is given for the existence of the Jezebel spirit or for linking it with the "principalities and powers" described in Ephesians 6.  But though the article gives the following caveats:

All strong females are NOT Jezebels . . . All of the above is NOT to say that women should not be in positions of authority and influence in the local church. Priscilla is always mentioned alongside her husband Aquilla in the New Testament and appears to be the primary pastoral figure between the two,

it goes on to say:

Jezebel is a woman with issues in her heart concerning male authority. She has probably been wounded by a male authority figure(s) in her past, and hasn’t allowed God to heal those inner wounds. A Jezebel is often a woman who has great disrespect for her father, either because he abused her, ignored her, or because he spoiled her by never confronting her immaturities as a child, and who let her run over him. Regardless of the why, she has nursed a deep disrespect for manhood inside her heart. . .

Sometimes a Jezebel is a Jezebel because, by default, she had no example but her mother… who was a Jezebel herself… in the home.  Men ought to wear the pants in their marriages. Some have a quieter personality than the wife, but they should still assert themselves enough to clearly demarcate who is the head of the family unit. . .

A foolish woman will just take over the husband’s role because she senses he is unsure of himself and she has the stronger personality. But this is unscriptural!

This is very much in line with standard charismatic doctrine, which (unlike in most other evangelical groups) allows women to have authority in the church, but which (as in most other evangelical groups) maintains that the man has "headship" over the wife in the marriage and the home.  But notice what has happened here.  Though women are granted leadership positions in the church, if a woman is perceived in any way as "having issues concerning male authority," the next logical step is to conclude that she has a Jezebel spirit "holed up inside her."  It may be that it is not she who has issues with a man or men in authority in the church, but the male authority who has issues with her.  No matter. By default, suspicion rests on the woman, while any issues that the man or men might have are easily overlooked.

It may be that problems in this hypothetical woman's marriage are due to an overbearing husband who disrespects and belittles her, and she feels the need to resist him.  No matter.  If she has "a problem with male authority" or asserts herself so that she is perceived as not letting him "wear the pants," she is suspected of having a Jezebel spirit.  And this is where the demarcation of this supposed evil spirit as "a stronghold of the second highest classification" becomes deadly.  Here is how the church is advised to deal with a Jezebel spirit:

There can be no détente with Jezebel.
Jezebel has to be dealt with.
Jezebel does not have it within herself to change.
Jezebel will strike again.
Jezebel must be run off.
[Emphasis added.]

Once a group of church leaders decides a woman has a Jezebel spirit, there is no appeal.  There is no argument.  And there is no mercy.

Many of these websites do say that it's possible for a man also to have a Jezebel spirit.  This, of course, simply subjects men to the same Catch-22 situation that church women may find themselves in.  But the deck is already stacked for women to be far more easily and frequently colored with the Jezebel spirit brush (sadly apropos, I suppose, since the woman Jezebel in the Bible is known for "painting her face!").  A man who challenges authority may simply be considered forceful.  A woman who does so is much more likely to be viewed as under the influence or possession of a demon of Satan's first echelon.

This is even more clear when viewing the Jezebelspirit.net website.  On its Introduction page it equates the Jezebel spirit with what psychologists call "narcissistic personality disorder":

The worldly term for the spirit of Jezebel is ‘malignant narcissism’ for which there is no cure. Some traits of narcissism include: excessive self-love; firm conviction that he or she is better, smarter, or more talented than other people; becomes irritated when other people don’t automatically do what he or she wants them to do; thinks most criticisms of him or her are motivated by jealousy; regards anything short of worship to be rejection; often complains of being mistreated or misunderstood; has fantasies of doing something great or being famous, and often expects to be treated as if these fantasies had already come true.

On this page the same basic idea is reiterated:

Those who are "infected" with the Jezebel Spirit are evil, and practice evil. Their character traits are well described and categorized in the secular world who classify these people as Narcissists or Psychopaths for whom there is no healing treatment or cure. [Emphasis in original]

Based on this, the website then warns:

When it comes to Jezebel, you can forget about praying for her to come to truth and repentance. You will be wasting your precious time. Also, you must never sympathize with her. You must be 100% against her, and stop having hopes for her recovery and well-being! She is not your sister or brother in the Lord. She is living in the strength of demonic soul power, absolutely sold out to doing evil, and completely out of the will of God and obedience to God. She is her own master, and ultimately she serves Satan. Yes, you are dealing with a human being behind the Jezebel spirit, but don’t be weak. This is a pure spiritual battle. You might ask: “Isn’t she just a poor deceived person herself?” Yes, she is deceived, but don’t you also be deceived to have any weakness for this person. If you love the person, cut soul ties immediately, and surrender her completely to God, for Him to determine her destiny. Remember again the book of Revelation where God gives her time to repent, but she refuses to do so. Do not try to save her, or you will go down with her. You need to alienate yourself completely, and have no patience and tolerance for her actions.

All these seemingly controversial points for a typical Christian mindset need to be dealt with before you are ready to fight Jezebel. Anything less than these attitudes will cause you to doubt, and fall prey to her. [Emphasis in original] 

Though there is truth in the idea that a person with narcissistic personality disorder cannot be trusted, and that churches should be aware of this disorder, recognize the traits and warning signs, and not let such a person destroy their congregations, the equation of this disorder with the Jezebel spirit is dangerous.  Narcissistic personality disorder is in fact quite rare.  False identification of church members as having this disorder and then shunning them as pure evil, is a real possibility.  This is particularly true since readers are encouraged to see the influence of the Jezebel spirit everywhere:

The Spirit of Jezebel is a dominating factor over the entire earth today. Jezebel hovers over the Television and Film Industry, causing most TV shows to portray a demonic, twisted, and perverted outlook on life. It cleverly teaches people to strive for material wealth, monetary success, and anything that has to do with instant gratification. . . The Jezebel Spirit is found in the church. Spirits like jealously, controlling submit-to-me pastoring, greed, possessive leadership, erroneous doctrine, focus on outward appearance, and self-promoting ambition all derive from the Spirit of Jezebel. . . The Spirit of Jezebel manifests in politics through narcissistic leadership, officials who love power and choose to steer a nation away from God through immoral legislation. The media is full of corruption, greed, desire for power, hunger for approval and attention, lies and deception, overindulgence, and money-hunger.

And then, even though none of these things are exclusive or even primarily found in women-- even though recognized medical websites like the Mayo Clinic state that narcissistic personality disorder affects more men than women, Jezebelspirit.net equates the Jezebel spirit almost exclusively with women:

The reason we believe the Jezebel spirit only pertains to women is because of the fact that men have been given natural authority from God, it’s not something they would need to fight to get, they already have it! Women, on the other hand, have not been given that same authority, and they would need tools to try to take that position of leadership that the man has. This is where the Jezebel spirit comes in. A demon will come to a woman presenting different tools she can use to regain power over the man. These tools are, among many others: manipulation, control, domination and seduction. For a wounded or scorned woman, these tools come as a temptation she cannot resist, and she grabs them, and starts using them. This is the moment she opens the door to become possessed by the demonic spirit that promises to provide her with everything she needs to accomplish her goal. She may or may not even be aware of what a devastating spirit she has just welcomed into her life. . .

At the other hand, when a man seems to be using some of the same tools as the Jezebel woman does, it is usually not a Jezebel spirit, but a power hungry spirit that comes from being an extremely wounded individual who has most likely been abused in one way or another, and need to control and manipulate his circumstances out of fear of being hurt again.

It is interesting how the website equates "controlling, submit-to-me pastorship" with the Jezebel spirit-- even though even in charismatic churches which allow women some church leadership, the pastorate is still overwhelmingly male! -- and then says that a man who acts like this probably has only a "power hungry spirit" that comes from being hurt and abused (the name seems to indicate that this is a spirit much lower on the totem pole and thus less dangerous than the Jezebel one).  The stage is set for men in the church to be treated with far more sympathy and less fear, even if the men are controlling or manipulative.

The website also uses the threat of the Jezebel spirit to keep women in a subordinate place within marriage:

One of the saddest things is the Jezebel Spirit's influence in Christian and non-Christian marriages, and the lack of understanding and effective arrest of these issues when they appear. . . Even if the woman possessed by the Jezebel Spirit is married, it will never be a marriage where she will acknowledge her God-given role in the marriage. She will have an attitude of wanting to be equal to the man in all matters — even try to prove to be a better leader than the husband. 

One of the main purposes of this evil spirit of Jezebel is to have the wives in the marriage take over the spiritual headship from their husbands, teaching and controlling them, and in doing so, reversing God’s order for marriage. Unless the husband fights his wife for supremacy, he will ultimately end up assuming the second place in the marriage.

Thus a marriage in which the man and woman desire to share authority equally is turned into a demonically influenced marriage controlled by the spirit of Jezebel.

So what we have here, in terms of spiritual abuse, is the makings of a perfect storm.

Here are some of Jezebelspirit.net's primary identifying marks of a person under the Jezebel spirit:

- Believes [themselves] to be right. Wants to win. Will argue till you drop.
- Has a blame/guilt mindset: Everything comes down to who is right and who is wrong.
- Is unwilling to compromise on priorities: Everything has to go the way they have planned it.
- Is strongly defensive when approached for criticism and correction, even guidance.

When ordinary human traits such as defensiveness under accusation become markers of demonic activity, it becomes impossible for an ordinary church member to deny she has one of these spirits, as denial would be perceived as one of the demon's tactics.  Accusation and conviction can easily become the same thing. And the worst thing is that it becomes easy to declare that simple disagreement that there is such a thing as a Jezebel spirit, is actually evidence of being under the influence of the Jezebel spirit.  This makes it impossible to engage in any sort of rational conversation about the factuality or even the scripturality of these claims.

Even when my husband and I were young charismatic Christians, the criteria for identifying a Jezebel spirit were vague and self-contradictory.  This is why a young man in Maranatha, years ago, could blithely decide that a woman he saw on television was possessed by a Jezebel spirit, simply because she sat at a desk where he was used to seeing a man sit, and spoke in a way he was used to hearing a man speak.

But now things have progressed even beyond that.  And it's far too late to nip this teaching in the bud; it came to full flower with the advent of the Internet and is now spreading its pollen on the wind.

My fellow Christians, my charismatic brothers and sisters, please: this sort of thing has to stop.  For the sake of innocent Christian women who sit beside you in church, combat this teaching!  Examine the passages in 1st and 2nd Kings and Revelation for yourselves, and search for any indication that they are talking about an evil spirit ranking first in Satan's army.  Examine the spiritual warfare passages such as Ephesians 6, and see if they give any warning of a Jezebel spirit, or of any spirit to beware of in one of the sexes over the other.

You won't find it.

It's extremely likely that even now, Christian women who do not have narcissistic personality disorder are being accused of having this spirit and are being disciplined or shunned by their churches, with no possibility of self-defense, simply because they have strong personalities or serious goals outside the home. A tendency to bossiness is sometimes a weakness of the stronger personality types, and though it's a flaw in both sexes, it should not be mistaken for demonic influence when exhibited by a woman.

This is not what the family of God should be involved in. Ephesians 3:10 says that the wisdom of God made known through the church is "manifold" -- meaning multi-faceted, varied and diverse. Christians, male and female alike, have a variety of personality types, gifts and talents.  Let's celebrate them and not be afraid of them just because they don't fit gender stereotypes.

We can be careful of the possibility of mental disorders within our midst without setting ourselves up for witch hunts.

Sanctified Sexism

When asked whether reading a Bible commentary written by a woman would be placing a man under the teaching authority of a woman, the well-known evangelical preacher John Piper responded as follows:

It might be. Uh. He may feel it that way. And if he does, he probably’s not gonna read it. He shouldn’t read it. . . [But] It doesn’t have to be experienced that way I don’t think. And here, here’s my reasoning. 

The point of Paul in I Timothy 2:12 where he says. . . I don’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over men. That’s a key text. I Timothy 2:12. I don’t permit her to teach or have authority. And those two things together, I think, constitute the eldership office. Teaching and authority. . .

What is the dynamic between how men flourish and women flourish as God designed them to flourish when an act of authority is being exerted on a man from a woman.

And so I distinguish between personal, direct exercises of authority that involve manhood and womanhood.

Because it’s personal. She’s right there. She’s woman. I’m man. And I’m being directly, uh, pressed on by this woman in an authoritative way. Should she be doing that? Should I be experiencing that? And my answer’s, No; I think that’s contrary to the way God made us.  So that the, the personal directness of it is removed. And the man doesn’t feel himself, and she wouldn’t feel herself, in any way compromised by his reading that book and learning from that book. Because I’m not having a direct, authoritative confrontation. She’s not lookin’ at me, and, and confronting me, and authoritatively directing me, as woman. There’s this, there’s this interposition of this phenomenon called “book” and “writing” that puts her out of my sight, and, in a sense, takes away the dimension of her female personhood.

Whereas if she were standing right in front of me, and teaching me, as my shepherd, week in and week out, I couldn’t make that separation. She’s woman. And I am man. (Transcript of portion of John Piper podcast provided by Bible Literature Translation.)

Notice that though John Piper uses the text of 1 Timothy 2:12 to support his view that a man can learn from a woman through a book, his actual point is that he would "feel" himself "compromised" if she came into his office and spoke to him in person-- presumably even if she quoted exactly, in person, the same words he just read in the commentary.  The fact is that as far as I can see, the text of 1 Timothy 2:12 really doesn't distinguish between a woman being physically present, or just reading what she wrote in a book.  The traditional reading is more about (as he himself admits above) whether she's an  "elder."  But that really doesn't seem to be what Rev. Piper is talking about.

As long as he doesn't have to notice she's a woman, Piper says, he has no problem receiving teaching from a woman who would be considered enough of an authority on the Bible to have her commentary published.  Apparently it isn't authoritative teaching by a woman that's the problem.  It's authoritative teaching by a woman in front of him, in the same room.  And this is a problem even, it seems, if she holds no "eldership office" anywhere in any church, but is instead a doctor of theology. 

So is this really about Dr. Piper's interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12?  Or is it more about Dr. Piper's feelings about how women should act towards men? 

John Piper considers himself a "complementarian." Theopedia.com gives us this definition of "complementarianism":

Complementarianism is the theological view that although men and women are created equal in their being and personhood, they are created to complement each other via different roles and responsibilities as manifested in marriage, family life, religious leadership, and elsewhere. . .Complementarianism holds that God has created men and women equal in their essential dignity and human personhood, but different and complementary in function with male headship in the home and in the Church.  

Complementarianism, holding that women are equal to men in their ontological being, thus sets itself apart from the more traditional view held both by Christians and the whole of society from the beginning of recorded history until at least the beginning of the 20th century-- the view that women were simply inferior to men.  As the Encyclopedia of Women and Gender, Vol. 1 states: 

"Early philosophical speculation emphasized the inequality of the sexes on all dimensions of social importance. . . [I]n later centuries female inferiority was viewed as a function of divine fiat, physiological instability, or defects in the brain.  Though the rationale for this belief changed over time, its substance remained the same: females in every respect, were viewed as lesser beings."

This belief was certainly not confined to the church, as Charles Darwin and his fellow evolutionists unabashedly declared that women were evolutionarily inferior to men.  But it is this traditional attitude that women are inferior that forms the basis of what is called "sexism," just as the belief that certain races are inferior is the basis of "racism."  

Here is one of Dictionary.com's definitions of sexism:

"discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women." [Emphasis added]

The online Social Science Dictionary simply says:

Beliefs which hold one sex superior to the other thereby justifying sexual inequalities. [Emphasis added]

A complementarian, therefore, should eschew sexism by principle.  Since complementarianism purports to base itself on Scripture alone for its view of the essential equality but functional differences between men and women, it seems reasonable to expect that those church leaders who publicly define and defend complementarianism in and for the church in general, would reject sexism, insisting that nothing but Scripture should define how men think of and act towards women.

Unfortunately, it's not always that simple.  

Human nature being what it is, most of us hold attitudes and ways of thinking which we have imbibed since we were children: attitudes that come from existing in our bodies in the societies and among the cultural mores in which we live.  Complementarians sometimes say that egalitarians, in rejecting "biblical" male-female roles and "male headship," are capitulating to "modern, feminist culture."  But the roots of sexism in American life lie far deeper and more entrenched than we may realize, and feminism (which has only existed for about 100 years) is really still the new kid on the block.  And complementarianism, of course, is itself informed by feminism when it re-examines the traditional Christian view and disagrees that the Bible supports the notion that women were created inferior.

So when the most public faces of complementarian Christianity in America today speak of men, women and male-female relations, Christians (complementarian and egalitarian alike) should be willing to confront them when the things they say, and the attitudes they reveal, show not so much a complementarian viewpoint as a sort of sanctified sexism-- a reflection of a deeply entrenched societal devaluation of women, a culturally imbibed societal expectation of favoritism towards men as the superior sex.

To do him justice, John Piper says this in the same podcast:

So, I think the point of that text is not to say that you can never learn anything from a woman. That’s just not true. It’s not true biblically, and it’s not true experientially, because the reason for saying that I don’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over men here is not because she’s incompetent. It’s not because she can’t have thoughts. In fact, the women in your church, and the woman in, the woman you are married to, have many thoughts that you would do well to know. [laughs] And to know, and learn, and to learn from. And so the issue there is not that she doesn’t have thoughts that you wouldn’t benefit from. Or that she can’t, uh, teach you anything.

The, the issue is one of how does manhood and womanhood work. 

Piper obviously believes that he believes men and women are equal.  He doesn't think he can't learn from a woman, or that women are incompetent to teach men.  But he can't seem to get past his discomfort in having a certain kind of experience of women-- an experience that gives him a feeling of being "directly pressed upon by a woman in an authoritative way."  Remembering that according to the complementarian injunction that a woman is excluded only from being a church elder, and not from being a theologian who comments on the Bible-- this is not about what she's teaching or where she's teaching or how she's teaching.  It's whether he has to directly experience a woman being an authority on a subject in his presence. 

It looks like sexism to me.  Sexism that's sanctified by its ostensible complementarianism, so that it slips under the radar as just part of complementarian doctrine.  But what Piper's words are really communicating, whether he intends it or not, is that he doesn't want women to get uppity in his face.  He doesn't want to feel, in the presence of a woman, that she might have more knowledge than him on a particular Bible text.  It makes him feel uncomfortable about his manhood.  

Is this, at its heart, about what Scripture says?  Or is it about how a man (raised in the 1950s and 60s when men expected to be deferred to by women) feels when a woman is not deferring to him? 

The same sort of thing happens in the most recent Pat Robertson controversy being picked up in the media:  the one where Pat Robinson (who became a married adult during the Father-Knows-Best 1950s) counsels a woman whose husband has been cheating on her that "men will be men":

"Here's the secret," the famous evangelical said. "Stop talking the cheating. He cheated on you, well, he's a man."

The wife needs to focus on the reasons she married her spouse, he continued.

"Does he provide a home for you to live in," Robertson said. 'Does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children... Is he handsome?". . .

"Recognize also, like it or not, males have a tendency to wander a little bit," Robertson said. "What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn't want to wander. . . ."

In another appearance back in January of this year, Robertson told a woman,

We need to cultivate romance, darling! ... You always have to keep that spark of love alive. It just isn't something to just lie there, 'Well, I'm married to him so he's got to take me slatternly looking.' You've got to fix yourself up, look pretty.

This certainly has a lot in common with traditional social attitudes towards male adultery, as illustrated in a Los Angeles Times article from 1987:

In a Parliamentary debate in 1857, the Lord Chancellor said that "A wife might without any loss of caste condone an act of adultery . . . but a husband could not condone a similar act on the part of the wife . . . as the adultery might be the means of palming spurious offspring on her husband." Englishmen could get a divorce for any evidence of adultery, while Englishwomen had to prove that the adultery was incestuous or otherwise unnatural.

Unflattering as it is towards men to say they shouldn't be required (or expected) to control their sexual urges, this mindset is part of traditional permissiveness towards male sexual behavior, while female behavior has traditionally been tightly controlled.  Though it may seem on its face to treat men as the inferior sex, what this attitude is actually rooted in is a devaluing of the woman to her sexual/reproductive functions as primary to her nature, while men are treated more as whole persons.  Not being expected to control himself is part of historically male autonomy, while being kept under rigid social control is part of historically female subordination.  So also is being told, in essence, to just be grateful for a roof over your head (which frankly, in this era when women usually contribute almost equally to the household rent, mortgage, grocery bills and clothing purchases, simply sounds ludicrous).

But what does this have to do with the Bible?  Where does the Bible say a man shouldn't be expected to control himself, or that it's a wife's job to stay pretty so that her husband won't stray?  On the contrary-- throughout the Book of Proverbs it's the man who is warned to not to be enticed by adulterous women, not the wife told to keep him from getting enticed! In fact, Proverbs tells men to choose to see the woman they married as beautiful, no matter how old the couple has become: 

May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be intoxicated with her love.
Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?

Prov. 5:18-20, emphasis added.

There is no onus laid upon women anywhere in the Bible to stay forever youthful in appearance, or to take responsibility for keeping their husbands from adultery.  Women are instead told not to focus on beauty, but on "the hidden person of the heart."  (1 Peter 3:4).  And far from being expected to just be grateful for being provided for by a man, Proverbs 31 shows that Old Testament women (wealthy ones, at least) had their own incomes, businesses and land ownership!

So-- are Robertson's words complementarian (focused on Scripture as teaching male-female equality along with difference in role)?  Or are they just sanctified sexism? 

It looks like the latter to me. 

So here's my respectful request and challenge to complementarians:  Please, no more sanctifying of sexism.  If an attitude that one of your public spokesmen (however well-intentioned) is perpetuating about women has nothing to do with what you believe the Bible teaches, then please, speak up about it!  Egalitarians and complementarians might be able to find some common ground here-- an area where we can work together for the uplifting and honoring of all our sisters in Christ. 

Just because a preacher is well-known doesn't mean he can't make mistakes, or that his mistakes shouldn't be addressed-- or that he shouldn't be encouraged to retract them just as publicly as the mistake itself was public.

Perpetuating the notion that the heart of Christianity is sexist-- devaluing to women and treating them as inferior-- isn't doing any of us any good.  

Are you with me? 

Even the Dogs Eat the Crumbs: Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician Woman

Matthew 15:21-28 tells this story:


Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."  The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.  He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”  “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

For years I didn't know what to think of this story.  It looked like Jesus was first ignoring, and then insulting, a poor, desperate woman-- for no other reason than that she was a Gentile.  It looked like she obtained healing for her daughter only after submitting to humiliation by agreeing that she and her people were little more than "dogs."  If Jesus is really the compassionate Savior of all mankind, how could He be so racist and cruel?  

But one of my general principles of Bible interpretation is to read passages like this in light of passages that are easy to understand.  Jesus is consistently portrayed elsewhere in the Gospels as ready to help any sufferer who came to Him, including Roman soldiers, tax collectors, and lepers.  When something doesn't seem to fit, the key is to look deeper.

As I discussed in my earlier post Assumptions Make You-Know-Whats Out of You and Me, the reason some Bible passages seem jarring and out of place, is that we come from a different cultural context.  Things the original writers and readers took for granted and felt no need to explain are mysteries to us, which can make us completely misunderstand what is actually going on.

So, in looking deeper, I found three aspects of Ancient Near East (ANE) culture that shed significant light on what Jesus and the woman He encountered were actually doing.

1.  Community.

Kenneth Bailey's book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes examines this story in Chapter 16.   He says:

"A critical component in both the parables of Jesus and the dramatic stories about him is the ever-present community.  In much current reflection on many of these texts, the community is ignored.  Contemporary Western society is highly individualistic.   Most of the societies in the majority world still function as tightly knit communities. . . That community gives identity and profoundly influences both attitude and lifestyle. In the stories about Jesus, the surrounding community (on- or offstage) is a critical component in all that takes place and its presence must be factored into any interpretive effort."

Bailey points out that this story is not simply about an interaction between Jesus and a foreign woman.  The disciples are the audience, and Jesus' words and actions must also be interpreted in light of whatever lesson He intended to impart to them.   (The listeners/readers of this story both as it was told and written down were also part of the tellers'/writers' intended audience.)   Bailey points out that both to the disciples and to the original hearers of the story, Jesus' interaction with this woman (who came out to him herself and was therefore probably a poor widow with no one to send in her place) would raise parallels with the story of Elijah and the starving widow of Sidon (1 Kings 7:7-16).  Jesus had spoken of this Elijah story in the synagogue when He announced Himself at the beginning of his ministry, in Luke 4:25-27: "And I can assure you that there were many widows in Israel during Elijah’s time, when it did not rain for three and a half years and there was a great food shortage in the land.Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to a widow in the city of Zarephath in the region of Sidon."  Jesus intended that His ministry be compared with that of Elijah, and that is just what the disciples would have done.

The initial response of Jesus to this foreign woman-- not answering her a word-- was entirely in accordance with the norms of the day, and the disciples knew it, which was why they asked Jesus to do the expected thing and send her away.  But Bailey points out that in the presence of this woman's suffering, and with their understanding of Jesus as a prophet, "such ethnocentric views were inevitably uncomfortable."  By interacting with this woman first within the social norms, and then by stepping outside them, Jesus was teaching His followers a new way to respond to foreigners-- and to women.

2.  Socio-Economics. 

Jane E. Hick's online article in the Lutheran magazine Word and World, entitled Moral Agency at the Borders: Rereading the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman, points out:

"Tyre was a well-known commercial center with significant trade relations along the Mediterranean. . . Tyre would have owned surrounding territories and could have claimed agricultural proceeds from these, but it would also have used its considerable clout and wealth to acquire surplus from Jewish villages, sometimes leaving less than enough for those who actually worked the land. One can imagine that the exploitative situation was exacerbated during times of drought and famine; urban centers likely took their allotment of food first, leaving shortages of food in the countryside."

Even if she was poor, the Syro-Phoenician woman was a still a member of a Hellenized (Greek-cultured) group which was known for exploiting the nearby Jewish community.  Hicks goes on to say, "Given these underlying power dynamics, Jesus’ household metaphor in which the bread goes first to the children of Israel would be understood by early listeners as a reversal of the reigning order."

Hellenized cultures such as this woman's would be well-versed in the teachings of Aristotle, to whom all others were barbarians, socially on a par with slaves.  Though the Gospel of Matthew reflects Jewish contempt of the woman as a "Canaanite," a descendant of the peoples originally displaced by the Jews, the fact remains that the contempt between these two people-groups would have been mutual.  The Syro-Phoenicians would have viewed the Jews as "dogs," and here in Syro-Phoenician territory, Jesus might very well have been ironically turning the prevailing attitude on its head for the woman to see and acknowledge.  His lesson in racism would thus not have been just for the disciples, but for her.

3.  Honor and Shame.

David A. deSilva's book Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture states in Chapter 1, Honor & Shame:

"The culture of the first-century world was built on the foundational social values of honor and dishonor. . . Those living or reared in Asiatic, Latin American, Mediterranean or Islamic countries have considerable advantage in their reading of the New Testament in this regard, since many of those cultures place a prominent emphasis on honor and shame. Readers living in the United States or Western Europe may recognize immediately that we live at some distance from the honor culture of the first-century Greco-Roman world (including the Semitic peoples in the East). In our culture the bottom line for decision-making is not always (indeed, perhaps rarely) identifying the honorable thing to do. In the corporate world, for example, the “profitable” frequently acts as the central value. Considerations of right and wrong are also prominent, but these are based on internalized values or norms rather than values enforced by overt approval or disapproval by the larger society. Typically we do not talk about honor and shame much. . . ." pp. 23, 25-26.

In the cultures of both the Jews and the Syro-Phoenicians, males and females gained honor in different ways.  Males gained honor by deeds of courage or generosity in the community, while women gained honor by maintaining the integrity of their privacy within the home and family.  DeSilva states:

In the ancient world, as in many traditional cultures today, women and men have different arenas for the preservation and acquisition of honor, and different standards for honorable activity. Men occupy the public spaces, while women are generally directed toward the private spaces of home and hearth. When they leave the home, they are careful to avoid conversation with other men. The places they go are frequented mainly by women (the village well, the market for food) and so become something of an extension of “private” space. In the fifth century B.C., Thucydides wrote that the most honorable woman is the one least talked about by men (Hist. 2.45.2). Six hundred years later Plutarch will say much the same thing: a woman should be seen when she is with her husband, but stay hidden at home when he is away (“Advice on Marriage” 9). Both her body and her words should not be “public property” but instead guarded from strangers." p. 33

Kenneth Bailey points out in Jesus Through Middle-Eastern Eyes that, just as no self-respecting woman would speak to a strange man in public, no self-respecting rabbi would speak to a woman in public (p. 221).  Jesus quite frequently ignored this prohibition: discussing theology with the woman at the well in John 4:1-42; assuring the woman who washed His feet with her tears that her sins were forgiven in Luke 7:36-50.  Here He seems at first to obey the social barrier, and then breaks it.  Why?

Bailey reminds us that in calling out to Jesus using the title "Lord, Son of David," this woman is using a Messianic title for Jesus-- very unexpected in a Gentile.  In spite of being a Syro-Phoenician, then, this woman believes that Jesus is more than an itinerant Jewish preacher.  She also opens with the beggar's standard cry, "Have mercy on me!"  This woman is so desperate for help that she deliberately lets go of  her honor by following and calling out to a man in public, and by using a beggar's words.  Socially, she has no reason to expect this Jewish rabbi to answer her-- but she believes He is more than a rabbi.   So she perseveres in the face of His silence-- but she does not (as we tend to do) read His silence as insult or cruelty.  Like the woman who touched the hem of His garment (Luke 8:40-48), she knows there are barriers to overcome and sets herself boldly to overcome them.

When the disciples, upset that Jesus has not already sent this shameful woman away, ask Him to go ahead and do it, Jesus instead gives a response clearly intended for the woman to hear: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel."  This is not an answer to the disciples' request.  Instead it is a rhetorical statement of something the disciples and the woman both know,* but it functions as a challenge to the woman:  "Tell me why I should help you."  Instead of sending her away, Jesus engages Himself in the interaction.  She then is encouraged enough to come right up to him and kneel, switching from the beggar's standard plea to the simple words, "Lord, help me."

And here is what is truly astonishing.  DeSilva tells us that a challenge of the sort Jesus offers was a common social interaction in ANE honor-shame cultures-- but only for men.  He explains:

"[H]onor can be won and lost in what has been called the social game of challenge and riposte. It is this “game,” still observable in the modern Mediterranean, that has caused cultural anthropologists to label the culture as “agonistic,” from the Greek word for “contest”.  The challenge-riposte is essentially an attempt to gain honor at someone else’s expense by publicly posing a challenge that cannot be answered. When a challenge has been posed, the challenged must make some sort of response (and no response is also considered a response). It falls to the bystanders to decide whether or not the challenged person successfully defended his (and, indeed, usually “his”) own honor. The Gospels are full of these exchanges, mainly posed by Pharisees, Sadducees or other religious officials at Jesus, whom they regarded as an upstart threatening to steal their place in the esteem of the people." p. 29, emphasis added. 

The rest of the exchange between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman is just this sort of challenge-riposte.  Jesus says, "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  He uses a diminutive word for "dogs," (Bailey, p. 224), which slightly softens the challenge.  But he flings up to her the attitude of her people towards the Jews, as well as their attitude towards her people.  She (perhaps wryly acknowledging that the tables are turned between them, a Hellenized woman in her own territory and a lowly Jew) answers with a pithy response-- which Jesus then acknowledges as having bested Him in the challenge!  

The challenge-riposte, if offered to a man, would be an attempt to gain honor at his expense.  But Jesus offers it to a woman who, according to every social convention of both their cultures, has already forfeited her honor in this situation.  In doing so He raises her to the status of an equal.  And in acknowledging her win, he restores her honor in the sight of the audience.

By understanding this story in terms of community, socio-economics, and honor/shame, we see that what is really going on is that Jesus has:

Echoed the mercy and miracle-working of Elijah;

Showed a foreign woman and His disciples their mutual prejudice;

Restored a woman's lost honor (at His own expense!);

Taught His followers what "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" really looks like; 

Answered a desperate mother's prayer for the healing of her child. 

And for us, of course, it illustrates again how we need to learn what things the original writers and readers took for granted and felt no need to explain, in order to keep from totally misunderstanding a Bible text. 

If Jesus had simply done as we in the modern West expect, and healed the woman's child, all the underlying dynamics would have gone unaddressed.   Instead, He used silence, followed by challenge-riposte, to deal with the full situation.  Seeing this, I have gone from embarrassment at this text and a wish to avoid it, to an even greater love and admiration for my Savior and a desire to tell this story on my blog as it it deserves to be told.

Jesus acted in concern for the whole person and the whole situation with which He was confronted.  He didn't apply bandaids, but spoke right to the heart of the matter.  And He healed more than just the child He was asked to heal.

So how do we apply this story to our own lives?

I think that for us today, this story is about how social and religious conventions can perpetuate racial and gender oppression.  Oppression hurts more than just those on the receiving end.  It hurts the perpetrators too-- and we as human beings often find ourselves in both positions.  If Jesus went against religious and social convention to set people free from attitudes that restrict and bind themselves and others, shouldn't His followers do the same?

______________

*Note:  Jesus' initial mission was to the house of Israel; it was to His followers, after the Resurrection, that the mission to the Gentiles would fall-- which renders a lesson to them like this one especially important.