Perceptions of Racism: Why We Need a Double Standard

This image has recently been displayed on Facebook, and I want to talk about it this week:

You can view a portion of the incident on CNN here. The Huffington Post also published an article detailing what had happened and some of the reactions to it:

As some people at the Missouri State Fair see it, the rodeo incident last weekend in which a ringleader taunted a clown wearing a mask of President Obama and played with his lips as a bull charged after him was neither racist nor disrespectful. It was a joke, they said, overblown by a news media that’s hypersensitive to any possible slight against the nation’s first black president. 

The rodeo incident and the clown at the center of it have become the latest illustration of racial divisions that continue to surface nearly five years into Obama’s presidency. . . Democratic and Republican elected officials in Missouri quickly condemned the incident, saying it was offensive and inappropriate. . . .

But there has also been a backlash on the right, with conservative radio talk show hosts and writers dismissing the act as a joke no different from jabs aimed at other presidents. Moreover, they said, the president’s supporters ought to learn how to take a joke rather than seeing everything as racially motivated.

There is a long history of mocking politicians at rodeos, and clowns have donned masks of other presidents as part of their acts. But James Staab, a political science professor at the University of Central Missouri, said last week’s incident “goes beyond the pale — they’re talking about physical injury and racial stereotypes.” 

To be fair, there is naturally going to be a difference in the way a rodeo clown dressed as a Democratic President is treated by the conservative, rodeo-going crowd of Missouri, compared to the way they would treat a rodeo clown dressed as a Republican and fellow Southerner like George H. W. Bush.  It's not surprising that the crowd demonstrated more verbal animosity towards the Democrat, and race may or may not have been a factor in that.  But that's not really what the problem is with the Facebook meme.

I also don't think it's all that helpful to focus on whether the Obama clown depiction was "racially motivated," as the Huffington Post puts it.  It's difficult and often unproductive to try to determine what people's motives are in a situation like this.  But there is an issue.  And the issue, as far as I can see, is not so much about what motivated the incident, but about what actually happened.

You see, I'm not talking about racial motivations, but about racism.  I think these are actually two things that overlap, but are really not the same.

I do think the Obama mask is racist, even though there was a similar mask of Bush that obviously wasn't.  One reason I think so is the simple fact that the Obama mask overemphasizes certain stereotypical characteristics associated with black people, such as large white teeth, in a way that simply doesn't apply to the Bush mask.  Another reason is that depicting African-Americans as clownlike and stupid is a historical practice of the dominant white culture in the U.S., and as such, it isn't funny when we do it today.  Based on our history as a nation, there are ways you can lampoon a white man that you can't lampoon a black one-- because the scars are still there, and this sort of thing isn't going to help heal any of them.

But there's more to it even than that.  

I want to talk about institutional, systemic racism-- the kind that isn't about "motivation." The kind that people participate in without intention, and often without even consciousness of doing so.  The fact is, that it's quite possible-- even easy-- to participate in systemic, institutional racism without in the least intending to be racist.  All you have to do is go along with the status quo.

That's not to say that there is never any actual, deliberate, racially motivated animosity towards our current President.  I'm sure sometimes there is.  But when it comes to racism, it's quite possible to participate in it without deliberate racial motivation at all.

Back in 2009, blogger Rod at Political Jesus identified a particular characteristic of conservative evangelicalism, which he spoke of in terms of sexism, but which easily apply to racism as well.  He said that conservative evangelicalism has

a highly individualistic view of sin–an idea that individuals alone are judged according to their sins and actions. . . 

[Thus they] discredit any theological notion of corporate sin, and therefore discredit the claims of [persons experiencing systemic injustice] since institutional sin does not exist. If institutional sins such as institutional sexism does not exist, then [such] claims cannot be explained except for anything but a “conspiracy theory.”

But this is not about a secret plot that a few people claim exists.  This is about real events that happen, real ways that people get treated, which are not part of any conspiracy, but just a factor of our ongoing social structures. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as institutional, corporate sin, and systemic racism is one of them.  If sins were only individual, why would Jesus speak as He did in Matthew 11:20-24?

Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. . . And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day."

An article in Watchman Magazine Online by Marc Smith explains a little bit about what might have been the corporate sin of Capernaum:

Capernaum was located in a very advantageous place (Matthew 11:23, "And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven..." This reference the Lord makes might have had to do with the attitude of its inhabitants more than any other factor.) in that it was on a crossroads of primary importance, being along the Beth-shan, Damascus highway. The presence of Roman soldiers at Capernaum (Mark 8:5-13) illustrates the importance of Capernaum's location. (Emphasis in original)

If Capernaum as a city could have been considered guilty of corporate pride by Christ, how can we say there is no such thing as corporate sin?  As long as we look at sin as only an individual thing, we will probably fail to see that we may be participating in systemic societal sin, simply by remaining blind to it and thus just going along with the way things are.

So what does systemic racism look like?  How does it relate to the way the Obama mask is perceived, versus the way the Bush mask is perceived?

This article on white privilege details several differences between being a white person and a person of color in America.  I think one aspect in particular applies here:  that in ways a white person will never experience, a person of color is viewed less as an individual and more as a representative of his or her entire race.   Here are some examples from the article, detailing conditions which people of color cannot count on, but which white people often take for granted:

I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial. 

I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

White people in our culture (and particularly white men) are usually looked at as individuals.  White is normative; white is the default.  You don't get noticed for being white in our society.  You aren't considered primarily as a member of a group known as "whites."

What this means for the rodeo clown mask incident (as my husband so pithily pointed out the other evening), people in general aren't going to look at the Bush mask and say, "Oh, look at the funny white man."

But  that's not the case with the Obama mask.  When people look at the Obama mask, the tendency, learned from our culture and passed down generationally, is to see a mask of a black man first, and of a man named Barack Obama second.

What this means is that we can't put a rodeo clown in an Obama mask without its being seen as a mockery, not just of our President, but of the entire black race.  Even if we don't intend it to be seen that way.  Even if that's the last thing on our minds.

Is this fair?  No.  But it's the way things are.  So to get offended when people say, "That's racist!" is to continue to walk in the privilege of not having to notice that it's not the same to be black in our country as it is to be white. 

I think it's important as a white person not to take this too personally.  To have someone point out that something we're participating in is racist, isn't necessarily an indictment on our character.  Instead, we can see it humbly, as a time to learn to let go of privilege.  It's time to learn to see through the eyes of those our race has traditionally and repeatedly othered.  We need to understand why the Bush rodeo mask and the Obama rodeo mask really aren't the same thing-- and why it's not hypocrisy to say so.

As white people, we tend to want to ask, "Then is the only way to not be perceived as racist, to treat people of color with more consideration than we treat ourselves?

Well-- yes.

Because we can't clean up a mess by pretending it's not there.  We can't just say, "As long as I'm not making a new mess, it's ok."  We can't just say, "I wasn't the one who made that old mess, and it's not my fault or my responsibility."  That doesn't matter.  We inherited this mess of systemic racism that's been here all these years, and we have to roll up our sleeves and bend down to work on cleaning it up. To pretend it isn't there ends up just being a way to leave it in place.

And that means that, until black and brown people are really free from institutional and generational racism, there has to be a double standard.

It's the least we can do.  Isn't it?

Christian Cliches: "Don't Cause Your Brother to Stumble"

This is the beginning of a series on various catchwords and cliches that Christians (particularly evangelical ones) are fond of using.  Like most oversimplifications, however, they usually give an inaccurate or one-sided view of the particular issue they purport to be about-- and often, they are based on misunderstandings of the Bible text(s) they are taken from.

"Don't cause your brother to stumble," is the first one I'm going to focus on.  This comes from Romans 14:21, "All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble," and 1 Corinthians 10:31-33, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.  Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God, even as I try to please everybody in every way.  For I am not seeking my own good, but the good of many, that they might be saved."*  The greater context of both these verses is whether Christians should eat meat that has been offered to idols-- which is not so much a problem nowadays, so the real issue is how this teaching should be applied today.

Twenty years ago, the way I usually heard this cliche used was in terms of drinking alcohol. Christians shouldn't drink, the idea went, because some people are problem drinkers or alcoholics, so in order to keep them from stumbling, we just shouldn't imbibe at all (even, for some reason, if there was no one in our group who actually had a drinking problem).   Of course, this was in reality a very American-evangelical notion (rooted in the Temperance Movement of the late 19th/early 20th century), because people in Europe, Christian or not, have always had a much more casual and non-uptight relationship with alcohol.  And American evangelicals have gradually loosened their attitudes in this area in recent years, too, so that you hardly ever hear "Don't cause your brother to stumble" used in this context.

Today, the way the cliche is most often used is not to discuss anything we imbibe or partake of, but to advise women to dress modestly, so as not to tempt Christian men to lust after them.

The Her-Meneutics article How "Modest is Hottest" is Hurting Christian Women puts the idea in a nutshell:

The Christian rhetoric of modesty, rather than offering believers an alternative to the sexual objectification of women, often continues the objectification, just in a different form. . .Too much skin is seen as a distraction that garners inappropriate attention, causes our brothers to stumble, and overshadows our character. Consequently, the female body is perceived as both a temptation and a distraction to the Christian community. . . (Emphasis added)

Another Her-Meneutics article, A Dad's Perspective: Why I Tell My Daughters to Dress Modestly, shows the reasoning behind applying these verses to women's dress:

Paul reminds us that, as all of Scripture does, that in all that we do, we have an obligation not only to ourselves but to others as well. This message has obvious intersection with modesty. Our bodies are not sinful or problematic—they are created by God and are beautiful things. Still, for many people, the bodies of others are tempting and cause them to think about that person in an objectified, sexualized light. This is surely more the fault of the one doing the lusting than anyone else. . . [but] we're presented with a quandary—bodies are beautiful, and yet they often cause us to think and act in sinful ways, so what do we do? . . We do whatever we can to prevent other beloved brothers or sisters from being stumbled. (Emphasis added)

To be fair, this article attempts to balance the message to women by enjoining men also to dress modestly.  But the fact remains that the primary message of the article is to women, and even though it is declared to be "more the fault of the one doing the lusting than anyone else," responsibility is also placed on the ones being lusted after to "prevent" someone from "being stumbled" (whatever that means)-- because if someone is thinking about someone in an "objectified, sexualized light," it's because they have been "caused" to do so. 

But is that idea of "cause" in the original texts?  And is it really appropriate to apply these texts about foods and eating, to women's bodies and what they wear? 

In 1 Corinthians 10:32, the word translated "do not cause anyone to stumble," is actually a single descriptive word, transliterated as "aproskopos."  The King James Version (KJV) renders this, "Give none offence."  It means "having nothing that anyone could strike [their foot] against."  The word in Romans 14:21 has the same root: it is the verb "proskopto," meaning "to strike against; to stumble." It is coupled in the original text with the verb "skandalizo," meaning "to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way."  The KJV renders it, "whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended."

The noun forms of these words are found in Romans 14:13: ". . . make up your mind not to put any stumbling block ("proskomma") or obstacle ("skandalon") in your brother's way."  Interestingly, a "skandalon" was literally the word for a trap or a snare.  These two words, with the added word "stone," are used of Jesus as a "stumbling stone" for non-believers in Romans 9:32-33.

What is missing from these texts is any actual word for "cause."  Clearly a person who puts an obstacle in someone's way that they might stumble over is responsible for putting it there-- but said person has not actually "caused" the other person to fall.  To blame Jesus because people stumble over Him is contrary to the most foundational beliefs of Christianity.

Words mean things.  The word "cause," particularly in our modern, linear way of thinking, is part of a chain of cause-and-effect that once started, cannot be stopped without another cause intervening that makes the process stop.  The KJV does not use the word "cause" in any of these texts, nor do most of the older translations.  The newer ones, like the NIV, the ESV, and NLT, all add the word.  The result is, I think, that in a way not considered by the original audience nor by readers of these texts in earlier English translations, modern readers find themselves holding other people responsible for their own stumbling.  "You made me do it!" is an attitude that women in particular find themselves confronted with, whenever they wear something that a man finds attractive or arousing.

What does it feel like when a young woman first truly experiences the male gaze?  When she understands that no matter what her intentions, many men are going to view her body as a tempting object?  That if they're Christian men and they feel attraction or arousal, they'll believe that means they have stumbled-- and if they have stumbled, it's because she caused them to?

Blogger Samantha at Defeating the Dragons illustrates this poignantly in her story:

It was Easter morning, and it was the first time I had owned a new dress– a pretty dress– in years. I felt elegant, delicate, a crocus pushing up through the snow. The chiffon skirt fluttered below my knees, and the light, cool fabric felt wonderful against my skin in hot, humid Florida. I walked into church that morning feeling like I was finally taking my first steps out of girlhood, and I felt pretty.

 After church was over, the pastor’s son confronted me in the dirt parking lot.

“Sam… Sam, I need to talk to you.”

I turned to face him, the pit of my stomach clenching. Somehow… I could feel what was coming. It was stamped all over his face, in the way he hung his head, in how he fiddled with the comb he always carried in his pocket.

“Sam… I, I really just don’t understand. The skirt you’re wearing– it,” he couldn’t look me in the eye as his voice broke.

“It caused me to stumble.”

I didn’t really hear anything after that– it was like he was far, far away, his voice coming to me from a distance and his face was frozen and warped. I caught snatches of “why would you do this to me? to yourself?” and the glow that had been inside of me all morning… it broke.

The second we arrived home from church, I dashed into my bedroom. In a frenzy driven by shame, by humiliation, by fear, I tore off that dress– the dress I had put on that morning, the dress that had made me feel that for once I could be pretty– and threw it into the dark corner of my closet and slammed the door shut. I crumpled to my bedroom floor, staring at those shut doors, and cried. (Emphasis in original)

That's how it feels.  Thank you, Samantha; a story is worth a thousand pictures.

But the passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians are actually talking about something you do that tempts someone else (who can't do it in good conscience) to do it too.   Being a woman, by contrast, is something you are.  And it's a fact that (especially if you're young or have female parts which are more rounded) no matter how you dress, someone somewhere is going to find it a stumbling block.

So how were these texts most likely to have been understood by the original readers?  Why was it that eating meat sacrificed to idols was considered to be putting a stumbling block in another's way?

First, it's important to remember that whereas modern Western culture is largely based on an underlying foundation of Christianity (going to church, at least at Christmas and Easter, is thought normative, as are these holidays themselves), Christians in ancient Rome and Corinth lived in a much different world, where the feast days and the center of worship were around entirely different gods. As  PBS's Frontline website puts it:

We have to remember that religion in the ancient world is very much a part of public life. They had no idea of a separation of religion and state. Indeed quite the opposite. Religion was one of the most important features of the maintenance of the state. One offered sacrifices on certain days as a part of the celebration of the founding of the state. One offered sacrifices on the birthday of the emperor. Cities very often mounted these enormous celebrations to celebrate the emperors and all the populace would have been expected to come and join in and for most people you wanted to join in. After all, this would have been a public celebration. A great festival....

To a newly-converted Christian in that culture, thinking of the Emperor and the Greco-Roman pantheon as real dieties for worship, was natural-- and learning not to think of them that way was hard.    That's why Paul says a few chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians, "We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and there is no God but one. . . But not everyone knows this.  Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled." (1 Cor. 8:4-7)

Older Christians, then, as brothers and sisters of the newly converted ones, would be bound by the expectations of kinship to aid their younger siblings.  The Kruse Kronicle's in-depth study of the "Household of God" as a major theme of the Bible, describes the ancient concept of brotherhood as understood in Paul's day:

The only familial relationship that seems to have been relatively free of contractual and utilitarian concerns was between siblings and in particular brothers (and indeed this was true of cultures throughout the Ancient Near East.) Brothers were assumed to be of one mind and in complete accord. (Emphasis added)

Another article in the same series shows how the concept of family (and particularly brotherhood) was applied to Christians, in order that they would see one another as fellow-members of a spiritual family:

The fictive family is Paul’s primary metaphor for instilling unity among believers and uniting them in common mission. . . Paul’s use of the metaphor seems to be used most frequently in his letters to the Corinthians, then Romans. .  . . 

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 8:9-11 to talk about how more mature Christians (whose consciences permit them to eat meat sacrificed to idols) are to act towards younger believers as older brothers: 

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. (Emphasis added)

Since brothers were to be in complete accord, seeing an older brother eating in an idol's temple would be a signal to a younger brother that he should do the same-- and, since he has not fully left behind him the emotions connected to his former worship of other gods, he would thus be ensnared into violating his own conscience.  

The mores of ancient Near-Eastern hospitality would also play a part in this ensnarement.  It was common in the culture for families to eat together of foods which were first offered to gods during religious observances.  A newly-converted Christian invited into a home where this was what was for dinner, would be conflicted in how to respond. This Santa Clara University article explains:

Just as the host is gracious, the guest is also obliged to be gracious. Whether an invitation to break bread is accepted or rejected is fraught with social implications. . . [W]hen it comes to basic humanity, no food is unworthy and all offers to share are equal. Rejecting an invitation to eat may imply an unwillingness to acknowledge the host as basically equal or valued as a human being.

In many cases the situation of being offered meat sacrificed to idols would have occurred in just such a host-guest situation.  The younger Christian guest would be trapped between the desire to not offend his host and refuse to eat, and his own belief that eating would in some sense mean a return to his former idol worship. Older Christians were being cautioned not to put their younger brothers and sisters in this type of a bind.  This was different from claiming that they were causing their younger brothers to sin-- the passages don't do that.  But Christians were enjoined not to put traps, snares or stumbling blocks in one another's way.

Conversely, when the New Testament actually talks about lust, it doesn't use the language of stumbling blocks at all (and it talks about lust far less often than it talks about food offered to idols). The principal place is Jesus' words in Matthew 5:27-28:  "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." 

Again the NIV obscures the sense of Jesus words by turning "looks at a woman to lust" into "looks at a woman lustfully."  "Lustfully" is an adverb describing the way a person looks at something.  The original Greek uses a verb meaning "to lust" plus a preposition that according to BibleHub's Greek lexicon has to do with "moving toward a goal or destination."  Intent is a clear connotation of this particular form of "to," as is also used in Matthew 6:1: "Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to ("pros") be seen by them."  A better rendering into our English to contain this sense would be "in order to."

Lust is not simple attraction or even arousal, which are natural and often involuntary responses of our bodies, which God created to be sexual.  Lust isn't something you feel, it's something you do.  Lust is when you look at someone you're attracted to in terms of gratifying yourself sexually with them.  It's not about physical attraction, it's about self-gratification.  It's about looking at a person not as a person, but as an object of self-satisfaction.

Because of this, the solution to lust cannot be any external thing another person does or doesn't do. The solution is to change our attitude about the other person.  And in general, it's about men changing their attitudes about women.  She isn't causing you to stumble into lust.  Lust is something you're choosing to do with your feelings of attraction.  And if you're feeling attracted but not choosing to look at her in terms of your own gratification, you're not lusting at all.

Romans 14:21 and 1 Corinthians 10:32 are very problematic to try to apply to women's clothing choices.  She's not putting you in a bind by doing something that you feel compelled by ties of brotherhood or hospitality to do too, and that if you did it, would violate your conscience.  She's simply wearing clothes on her body-- which God created and called good.

The Her-meneutics article "How Modest is Hottest Hurts Christian Women" (linked to above) affirms:

[T]he church needs to overhaul its theology of the female body. . . Women's bodies are not inherently distracting or tempting. On the contrary, women's bodies glorify God. . . He created the female body, and it is good.

So -- if one of the words for "stumbling block" actually refers to a trap or snare, what does that mean for women who find that no matter what they do, no matter how they dress, they can be blamed for "causing their brothers to stumble"?  Doesn't this put a woman in a bind?  Doesn't it tempt her to look at herself in terms of being an object for sexual gratification, thus denigrating the image of God in her?

Christian brothers-- please stop putting this stumbling block in your sisters' way.


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*All Bible quotes are from the New International Version, 1984, as this is on the whole the version most familiar to evangelicals. 

Gender Roles and Responsibility – Part 1

This question was recently asked in a comment on my blog:

Q:  I had a discussion with my pastor and his wife today about some of the issues I've been thinking on. They are strongly complementarian and are adamant that 'at the end of the day' - judgment - the males will be held accountable for decisions effecting both home and church.
Is it wishful thinking on the part of the woman to think that she isn't accountable to God, for the direction a family takes? I can't hear a specific answer from them, re what particular thing a husband will be responsible to for, that a wife won’t. What would you say to this-- what decisions does/will God hold each Christian responsible for?

I always like to start with definitions of terms:

Responsibility:  A duty or obligation to satisfactorily perform or complete a task (assigned by someone, or created by one's own promise or circumstances) that one must fulfill, and which has a consequent penalty for failure.  

Responsible: Able to make moral or rational decisions on one's own and therefore answerable for one's behavior.

Accountable:  subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; answerable.

Accountability is related to responsibility in that we are accountable to get done what we are responsible to do.   To have responsibility, one must be “responsible.”  This means we must be competent adults.  Children and persons who are mentally disabled are not considered legally responsible.  Their parents or guardians are held responsible for them.

The Spiderman comics and movies are famous for this quote: “With great power comes great responsibility.” There can be no responsibility where there is no power.  A child is considered to have no power to sign a legal document, and therefore incurs no responsibility if she does sign.  We have no duty or obligation to perform any task which is beyond our power. 

When God created humankind and gave them “dominion” over the creation in Genesis 1:26, God was giving humans power, and therefore responsibility, over their environment and over themselves.  Everyone has some measure of power.  Children can’t be held responsible under the law, but their parents and teachers hold them responsible to do the duties they are capable of doing.  When we have power over others’ actions, we are also held responsible for the things they do.  This is why bosses have the ultimate responsibility over their businesses—because they are the ones with the power to do (or cause to be done) what they are responsible to do. 

James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”  In Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30), the one who was given five talents was responsible for all five, while the one who had three talents was responsible only for those three.  We are responsible according to the amount of power we have and the use and influence of our power over others.

So the position taken by the pastor and wife described in the question above, is a logical outgrowth of the position called “complementarianism” --  that husbands have God-given authority over wives, and that church leaders have God-given authority over congregations and therefore must be male.  If husbands can tell wives what to do, then husbands have power over their wives, and consequently they are accountable for what they tell their wives to do and how they use their power.   I prefer to call this “male-hierarchalism,” since I think it describes the position better than the somewhat misleading term “complementarianism.” (Christian egalitarians also believe that men and women complement one another, but without hierarchy.)

Because male-hierarchalists believe husbands are the ones with final authority to make decisions affecting the home, and male church leaders are the ones with final authority to make decisions affecting the church, they believe God will hold males more accountable than females for these decisions.  However, nowhere in the Bible does it say that women, because they are women, are less responsible before God than men— it is, as I said, only a logical outgrowth of the position that God denies women decision-making powers in the church and home.  At the creation God gave the man and the woman both “dominion,’ and with it responsibility—and God never said He was giving the man more dominion (or more responsibility) than the woman.   If the proof-texts that are used to support male hierarchy in the church and home are being misread (which many of my posts on this blog attempt to prove), then there is no reason to conclude that God, purely on the basis of gender, holds males more accountable than females in this life or in the next.

Furthermore, even when Christian male-hierarchalists take responsibility away from women, our modern Western societies continue to consider them full adults and to hold them accountable as such.  If a woman goes along with her coercive church and husband in denying a child medical care, for example, both parents are still held responsible if that child is harmed.  The courts will not respond, “Oh, that’s ok, then,” when a woman explains that she believed she had to submit to her husband.    Courts might find a mitigating circumstance if a woman could prove she was being forced into child neglect by her husband, but if she claims she was submitting of her own free will, they will not understand!  Women have power in our world over their children, and therefore they are responsible for the well-being of those children.

I think women are also fully accountable to God as responsible adults.  But when they are coerced or shamed or otherwise convinced to give up adult power and abdicate adult responsibility, I think God is able to consider the woman’s heart in ways that courts of law cannot.  Therefore our merciful Father will hold more accountable, the ones who convinced her it was His will that she give up her self-determination. 

Ultimately, we are all responsible at least for ourselves and our own actions.  We also have responsibility for the way we use any additional power we may have.  But in male-hierarchical Christianity I have seen some worrying things happen regarding personal responsibility and who is held accountable for what.  The potential for crazy-making responsibility issues in Christian male-hierarchalism, will be the subject of next week’s post.